In his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera categorises people into four types according to the kind of look they wish to live under.
“The first category longs for the look of an infinite number of anonymous eyes, in other words, for the look of the public. The second category is made up of people who have a vital need to be looked at by many known eyes.”
“Then, there is the third category — the category of people who need to be constantly before the eyes of the person they love. And finally, there is the fourth category — the rarest, which is the category of people who live in the imaginary eyes of those who are not present. They are the dreamers.”
If the Czech author’s categorisation seems comprehensive at first glance, it lacks, in our opinion, three elements of importance: the impact of a look, its role in shaping the relationship between the self and others, and the deep impact that being under someone’s looks has on a man or woman’s core, existence, and freedom.
In this sense, we can talk of an ontological dimension to being under someone’s look. French philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre pinpointed this idea and brought this dimension under the spotlight in his treatise, Being and Nothingness, and his play, No Exit.
Sartre dedicated several pages of his book to discussing the importance of a look in defining the self's relationship with the other and its role in shaping the self's freedom.
“If the Other-as-object is defined in connection with the world, as the object which sees what I see,” says the phenomenological-existential philosopher, “then my fundamental connection with the Other-as-subject must be able to be referred back to my permanent possibility of being seen by the Other.”