The Role Of Blindness In Literature

The word ‘blind’ isn’t likely to be equated with an actual blind person in today’s world, more often is it used to represent a more abstract concept. Blindness has come to represent a great variety of things in literature, being used as a metaphor for everything from ignorance to supernatural powers. These views of blind people as being different have become engrained in our minds after many years of establishment through literature. Nevertheless the opinion held by many people who actually experience blindness themselves (including the President of the National Federation of the Blind) is that their ideal would simply be to be treated the same as anybody who still has their sight. However, People who are blind can’t do anything for themselves, …show more content…
“Mr. Parsons [...] felt a sudden and foolish sort of pity for all blind creatures.” (Source #3) It is surprising that a blind man experiences such feelings, however the thinker is shining a light on the absurdity of the expectations of the abilities of the blind. The blind beggar that Mr. Parsons refers to in this story knows, as well as Mr. Parsons himself, that people expect that the blind will be weak and seemingly useless (expectations built from centuries of literature portraying the blind in this manner) and exploits these misconceptions held by the general public on the matter of blindness by conforming to them, in order to gain pity (even the pity of a man who rejected these stereotypes himself). Stereotypes of the blind originated soon after the dawn of literature, long before what we know as modern day. So, why is it that these stereotypes remain to this day? The answer is literature. As little as we’d like to admit it, literature has carved these thoughts of the blind into our minds. Literature is one of the greatest resources for knowledge, but we must never hold an object (even if that object is as beneficial to the mind as a book) in such high regards that we do not realize when prejudices are present; we must recognize when stereotypes are present, such as in the movie Blindness and avoid furthering them. Someone who has experienced these prejudices firsthand can confirm their foolishness, Dr. Marc Maurer (president of the National Federation of the Blind) says, “Blind people [...] are portrayed as incompetent [...] unable to do even the simplest things, like dressing, bathing, and finding the bathroom. The truth is that blind people regularly do all the same things that sighted people do.” (Source #2). Mr. Parsons is unrecognizable as blind by the definition of being