By observing the notion of blindness to bad fortune, the book of Job is able to highlight the role of God’s connection to humanity’s suffering. One of the most interesting parts of the book of Job, in my opinion, is the start of the book with the counsel of God—and how that is portrayed in the play, “J.B.” The biggest question of the book is why does God let bad things happen to good people? And there isn’t a direct answer to that, yet God seems to debate this and watch it play out in the first chapters of the book. In the Bible it reads: “And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, all he hath is thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord” (Job 2:13). This interaction between God and Satan is really thought-provoking because it seems that God very easily welcomes this notion of Job losing a lot of good livelihoods. It can be read as confidence that Job will pass this test, but it does make the reader question why He so willingly puts this pain and hardship in the life of a very virtuous and holy man.
This counsel scene is played out more in the play, “J.B.” This scene is carried out in the prologue of the play between two actors who are playing the Godmask and Satanmask acting out this chapter of the Job book. The use of the masks is a detail so essential to the big question of job—especially in the feature of the eyes of the masks. The Godmask is noted as an “expressionlist mask with eyes lidded like the eyes of the mask in Michelangelo’s Night” (16). While the Satanmask’s eyes are highlighted: “…open-eyed where the other was lidded. The eyes, though wrinkled with laughter, seem to stare and the mouth is drawn down in agonized disgust” (18). The difference of the two eyes is talked about in the script as the actor of the Satanmask, Nickles, remarks, “Those eyes see” (22). He suggests that his eyes can see everything compared to the Godmask and I think this symbolizes the initial counsel scene were Satan challenges Job’s virtue. To me this suggests that Satan thinks that he can see the whole picture when looking at Job and his well fortune, yet God doesn’t need to see this to know it. I think this pokes at that original question and although it doesn’t answer why there’s misfortune on good people, it suggests that God is blinded in some way to something on earth. While in turn, Satan thinks he can see. This good and bad contrast and the notion of blindness in the idea of bad fortune is a deep question that the book of Job does not answer, but rather brings to light and attention.