Curiosity Killed the Robins: A literary analysis of Blue Velvet

Philosophers have long tried to reconcile the apparent differences and duality between mind and body, largely without success. In Blue Velvet, David Lynch adds his layer of commentary to this age old area of interest. Lynch presents us with Jeffrey as a central character and creates other characters as symbols of different parts of Jeffrey’s self and external reality. The entire film is done in a very surrealistic fashion and for this reason I will not try to interpret any scenes as strictly representative of what is happening, but instead as representative of Jeffrey’s perception of reality, or even complete figments of Jeffrey’s imagination. The distinction between the last two cases is not a fine line, but a broad continuum from objective reality to complete fantasy and is largely immaterial for the purpose of analysis.

Lynch portrays Jeffrey’s inquisitive side first. This aspect of Jeffrey is intelligent, rational, and curious. This is the Jeffrey that finds the decomposing ear and immediately begins investigating. This desire for knowledge leads Jeffrey to the home of Detective Williams, searching for any information about the ear. Detective Williams stops this aspect of Jeffrey’s personality short when he turns him away from the case. Jeffrey seems ready to abandon this part of his nature very easily as he leaves the Williams’ household unfulfilled. At this point in the story Sandy is introduced.

Sandy appears from pure blackness. This shows her creation in Jeffrey’s mind. She does not arrive from any real place. Lynch makes a strong choice here, as it is typical to have a character enter from anywhere except nowhere. Sandy represents Jeffrey’s natural curiosity and intellect. Before meeting Sandy, Jeffrey was ready to abandon all thoughts of the ear. After only a few lines of dialogue he is hotly interested and searching for more clues. Sandy, playing the role of his inquisitive nature, has sucked him in.

Later, Jeffrey and Sandy meet in a diner where Jeffrey will reveal his daring plans to Sandy. Here, Lynch uses Jeffrey’s pie to symbolize physical reality. Sandy, who represents only intellect and mental concerns, does not eat. Jeffrey, really the only whole person in the film, does. This opposition of him eating while she abstains is repeated in the several diner scenes. Eating is not all he does however; he also forms grandiose ideas and discusses them with Sandy. Sandy, the voice of immaterial reason, likes his ideas, but doesn’t want to see them made real. “It sounds like a good daydream,” she says, “but actually doing it is too weird.” Sandy’s remoteness from the physical world is shown again in the Slow Club, where she reveals that she has never tried Heineken. The only beer she has knowledge of is Bud, and this comes through her father. She has no direct contact with physical reality, only secondhand knowledge of it, gained through sharing information with others.

When Jeffrey breaks into Dorothy’s apartment, Sandy waits outside, never becoming involved in the actual action. Her function is only to monitor and serve as an alarm. This alarm is rendered useless when Jeffrey uses the toilet and drowns out the sound of Sandy’s horn. This is the first image of a battle between the ideal and the material. Jeffrey’s corporeal body necessitates that he urinate and ruins the plans of his intellectual side, shown as Sandy.

Because of this mistake Dorothy enters her apartment while Jeffrey is still there. Jeffrey is sexually attracted to Dorothy and has been from the moment he laid eyes on her at the slow club. Dorothy represents Jeffrey’s desire. When Dorothy catches Jeffrey she forces him into a very awkward situation. He is aroused by her sexuality and simultaneously terrified by the looming butcher knife. Dorothy renders Jeffrey inarticulate, though he is usually eloquent, or at least well-spoken. Jeffrey introduces himself as, “Jeffrey. Jeffrey Nothing,” and tells Dorothy, “I wanted to see you.” His involvement here is very personal compared to the detachment he shows around Sandy. He gives only his first name, the name that is his identity, not a part of his family or any societal structure. He expresses a simple and unadulterated desire.

Throughout this scene Dorothy maintains a lower position than Jeffrey, even when she forces him to his knees. This shows Dorothy’s place as something low or base, a simple animal desire. Still, she is in complete control of the situation. In this battle, the animal has defeated the intellect. On her knees in front of the naked Jeffrey, Dorothy represents the ultimate extremes of animal desire and fear. While sex is the most powerful instinctual drive in males, fear of castration is the most powerful instinctual deterrent. Dorothy is instinct and animal nature in the extreme. Throughout this torment, Dorothy screams at Jeffrey to not look at her. This warning to look away means little at this point, but will ultimately become a key part of Lynch’s statement.

Frank comes into the picture first through Dorothy. She speaks his name on the telephone and he comes to her apartment to see her. Frank is violence and evil embodied. Lynch makes a strong statement by bringing Frank in through Dorothy. He agrees with the Buddhist idea that evil comes only out of desire. Throughout his abuse of Dorothy, Frank forces her to look away. He does not want to be seen or studied. He wants to be present but invisible. When Frank leaves, Jeffrey comforts Dorothy, who draws him in sexually. “See my breasts?” she asks, “Do you like how they look? You can touch them. Do you like how they feel?” Everything Dorothy brings up is very sensory. She represents only immediate reality and desire, not abstract thought.

In the hardware store Lynch hints at his overall purpose. The two black men working together at the register each represent one part of a complete person. The blind man is the intellect, while the seeing man is the physical reality. To complete their business transaction successfully, that is to sell the ax, they must work together. The seeing man reads the item number to the blind man who could not possibly learn it himself. The blind man then tells the price to the seeing man, who was apparently ignorant of this important information. To be a whole person, Jeffrey needs to resolve the separate parts of himself.

When Jeffrey rendezvous with Sandy in the car the first words out of her mouth are, “Aren’t you going to tell me about it.” The intellect wants information, but is unwilling to take part in reality to obtain it. Here Jeffrey says, “This is a strange world,” and bemoans the evil in it. “Why are there people like Frank in this world? Why is there so much trouble in this world?” he asks. The world here is in Jeffrey’s head. It is the side of him that experiences reality. The answer to his question is that the physical world is filled with real desire that leads to trouble.

Also in this scene, Sandy tells Jeffrey about her dream of the robins. She tells him that, “There is trouble until the robins come.” I don’t know how universal this idea is, but in my hometown of Kansas City Kansas (and I suspect other places of similar climate) robins represent the end of winter. Spring is officially in when the first red-breasted robin is spotted. Robins are not an idea, but a real thing. Still, Sandy recognizes them as beautiful. This is an important realization. This is the melding of two worlds that Jeffrey needs to accomplish. When he can find the beauty in imperfect reality, he can lead a normal life.

In Jeffrey’s first encounter with Dorothy he managed to want her yet still stay above dark side of animal nature: violence. In their next sexual encounter, Jeffrey gives in to her pleading and hits her. At this point we see that Frank is not simply some external enemy that Jeffrey must try to destroy, but a part of Jeffrey himself that he must deal with. Lynch emphasizes this by using slow motion and an animalistic roaring sound as Jeffrey hits Dorothy that exactly matches the slow motion and roaring Frank exhibits in Jeffrey’s mind when Jeffrey recalls what he witnessed.

By showing weakness and lack of control, Jeffrey lets Frank into his life and makes himself vulnerable. Immediately after this scene comes the joy ride sequence. Frank is at the height of his power. He brags to Ben, “I can make him do anything I please.” It seems that brute instincts have completely conquered any scrap of intellect that remains. In the car Frank tells Jeffrey not to look at him. “I fire when I see the whites of the eyes,” he warns. Again Jeffrey is told to quit looking so closely. Outside of the car, Frank, quoting Ben’s song, tells Jeffrey, “In dreams I talk to you; in dreams you’re mine.” This gives another clue to Frank’s animal nature, as dreams are generally full of powerful imagery that reveals our most base desires. Frank emphasizes his power once more before he violently beats Jeffrey, saying, “Feel my muscles. You like that?” Jeffrey does like the power, but he sees now that it can work against him.

Now that Jeffrey is in serious physical danger, he is ready to involve the police. Before speaking to Detective Williams, he consults Sandy, worried that her involvement could get her in trouble. “Forget me,” Sandy tells him. Here the intellect is willing to give itself up in favor of self-preservation. There are more important needs at hand than the intellect’s integrity.

Outside Sandy’s house she questions Jeffrey, “Why did I ever get you into this?” The mind admits that it has drawn the whole person into trouble through its thirst for knowledge. Just as Frank represents the dangers of unchecked desire and animal power, here Sandy admits that the mind, unchecked, is what ultimately leads to these troubles. She seems to be saying that curiosity killed the cat, or at least got him in quite a mess. This is what Dorothy and Frank were getting at when they told Jeffrey not to look. We all have some evil in us, some bit of animal desire that is ready to trample our carefully constructed notions of right and wrong. This is kept at bay only through denial, not defeat. Staring into it will only let it overtake you.

At the conclusion, Sandy is sickened to learn of Jeffrey’s association with Dorothy. The rational mind is often confused and upset by the actions of the body. Drug addiction is a perfect example of this, and Frank portrays it well, sucking nitrous in many scenes and in the scene with Ben doing and dealing various unrecognizable drugs. Sandy slaps Jeffrey for his involvement with Dorothy, as the intellect often scolds the animal desire that leads to problems, but she later forgives him. Immediately after forgiving Jeffrey, Sandy tells him that she loves him and admonishes him to be careful. The intellect pardons a slip of instinct, comes back to it out of love for the whole person, but cautions against making the same mistake again.

In the end, Jeffrey comes out of his introspective turmoil as a whole person. He chooses Sandy for his companion, but lets Dorothy exist, running free with her son. Desire must be kept at a distance, reigned in by the mind, placed out of sight, but never fully abandoned. His acceptance of the material world is shown through the robins. They are rendered imperfect both by the disgusting act of eating bugs and by their obvious artificiality, but all the characters present still recognize them as a thing of beauty. The abstract and the concrete have joined well enough to appease Jeffrey’s troubled mind. The secret is to not look at the seams too closely.