Oliver Sacks To See And Not See Analysis

Oliver Sacks has a way of making people see certain physiological phenomena in a more realistic way, a great example of this being his book “To See and Not See.” This novel is about a man named Virgil, who has been completely blind since a very young age. Virgil meets a woman named Jenny, who is able to convince him to get a surgery that could possibly give him his eyesight back. Being in love with Jenny, Virgil agrees to the surgery and it works, but not before the many issues that came with the new eyesight. When Virgil gains his eyesight, things are completely new for him, since he has only been able to see as a young child. Sacks is able to describe this predicament saying “Virgil opened his eye, but being blind for forty-five years-having had little more than an infant’s visual experience, and this long forgotten-there were no visual memories to support a perception; there was no world of experience meaning awaiting him (Sacks, 1995).” When thinking about a case where someone who’s blind is given the chance to see again is often seen as something that will go perfectly, with all challenges being overlooked. Oliver Sacks is able to highlight theses challenges, creating the setting for a story. This is what makes the comparison between Virgil and an infant such a genius comparison. …show more content…
It constitutes a huge learning task, but is achieved so smoothly, so unconsciously, that its enormous complexity is scarcely realized. But for Virgil, with half a century of forgetting what visual engrams he had constructed, the learning, or relearning, of these transforms required hours of conscious and systematic exploration (Sacks, 1995).” Virgil had not experienced the early sense of perception long before he became blind. Relearning sight perception was difficult within itself, but pressure from others added onto the adjustment