What does the phrase “eyes wide shut” really mean? It seems to be a contradiction. No one can answer this without talking about the Kubrick film, and yet I also read le Carre use the same phrase to talk about a spy walking into a “honey trap” seemingly aware but uncaring of the consequences.
Below find a typical explanation:
- It's a title of an excellent movie by Stanley Kubrick (director) [1], based on the 1926 novella Traumnovelle (Dream Story) by Arthur Schnitzler.
- It means a person refuses to see something in plain view, because of preconceived notions of what this something should look like. This frequently happens to naïve people. In the said movie, the title refers to sexuality, specifically to female sexuality, and refusal of the protagonist to see that women can have both sexual fantasies (besides her primary partner) and substantial sex drive.
https://www.quora.com/What-does-the-phrase-eyes-wide-shut-mean
The phrase predates the movie so I suspect the definition should not depend on it.
Best Answer
I used this phrase on myself when my marriage ended for reasons that I knew existed prior to but chose to ignore or had a notion I could change. In the end, I said, " Well, I went into it with my eyes wide shut". Therefore, the definition to me is very much a play on words. It doesn't only apply to a naive individual. It applies to those who choose to enter into or take on something and all the while are fully aware of the perils or dubious outcomes that may lie right before them. It's a connotation that could be one of romanticism or that of ignorance to the obvious and not listening to intuition.