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The narrative poem “On his Blindness,” written by John Milton, is an Italian sonnet which reflects upon a religious man’s perspective of how to accept ones disabilities. The poet is effective in doing so, as he uses both figurative imagery and religious references to convey the struggle and challenges that the disabled endure. "On his Blindness," is a poem that reveals a religious man’s acceptance of his lack of vision through a conversation with “Patience”. Milton often refers to his inability to see by using figurative imagery to contrast light and dark images throughout the poem. This type of imagery helps in portraying his reflection on his past life, when he was not blind, to the different life he leads now. The positive and negative images allow for various interpretations of light and dark. Milton first professes his blindness by making a reference to his lack of light in stating that his, “…light is spent,” (1) establishing a connection between “light” and “talent”. In reference to his sight, using the word “spent” means that his eyesight has diminished and his days of...
In the short story Cathedral, by Raymond Carver, there is a direct contrast between a blind man named Robert, and the narrator. The narrator has full use of his senses, and yet he is limited to the way he sees things, and the way he thinks. Robert however, has a very different outlook on life and how he sees things, as well as the use of his senses. At the end of the story, Robert has the narrator close his eyes to try and get him to experience the world the way he does. The narrator ends up being able to not only see the way Robert does, but he also is able to feel the world in a completely different way. The author suggests that the mind is most important in how people view things, and the judgements we make are based on what we see in our heads, instead of what is really there.
People want to feel unique, but at the same time they do not want their differences to call negative attention to themselves. People can be made to feel isolated from others if they feel that they are different in a hindering way, such as having a disability. In Stephen Kuusisto’s Planet of the Blind, he uses allusions to convey to sighted readers the challenges and joys of being blind. In order to blend in with the crowd, Kuusisto attempts to hide his blindness. In doing this, he denies accepting himself and becomes lonely. Those who do know him cannot truly understand him because he does not express his vulnerability in being blind. Throughout his memoir, Kuusisto alludes to outcast characters, such as the creature in Frankenstein and Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, because his “disability” often leads him to feel as an outsider. In his attempt to fit in with friends by hiding his blindness, he is instead left feeling isolated and conveys this through his passion for literature.
The narrator’s prejudice makes him emotionally blind. His inability to see past Robert’s disability stops him from seeing the reality of any relationship or person in the story. And while he admits some things are simply beyond his understanding, he is unaware he is so completely blind to the reality of the world.
Vision is something many people take for granted every day. Society only deals with the matter of being blind if they are the less fortunate ones. According to the Braille Institute, "every seven minutes a person in the United States loses their sight, often as part of the aging process" (1). Only two percent of legally blind people use a guide dog and thirty-five percent use a white cane. Blindness can be caused from various different types of things including (in order) age-related macular degeneration, glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and age-related cataracts. (Braille 1). However being blind does not mean a person is in total darkness. Some people can see lights and the shapes of objects, but the most import thing is for family and friends to provide hope and encouragement. The last thing a person who has lost their sight wants is to lose their family and support, which will led to loneliness. Likewise, in the short story "Cathedral," by Raymond Carver's, blindness is the key element in the story and shows in detail how the characters manage it. The theme Carver conveys in the short story is being able to see without sight and is revealed through the characters, tone and plot of the story.
Carver designed the husband’s background through his unknown blindness of the modern world. The husband sees his wife’s blind friend as disabled and not as a person. The narrator is not happy about the blind mans stay because it makes him feel awkward. “and his being blind bothered me. My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movie the blind move slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. The blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to”(4). This way Carver shows how blindness can hold back people in the world today. Spiritual blind people on the other hand can’t see beyond there own physical site.
The limitations that were holding the narrator back were abolished through a process from which a blind man, in some sense, cured a physically healthy man. The blind man cured the narrator of these limitations, and opened him up to a whole world of new possibilities. Robert enabled the narrator to view the world in a whole new way, a way without the heavy weights of prejudice, jealousy, and insecurity holding him down. The blind man shows the narrator how to see.
In Raymond Carver?s ?Cathedral?, the conventional ideas often associated with blindness and sight are challenged. By juxtaposing his two male characters, Carver is able to effectively explore sight and its seemingly simplistic relationship with learning and knowledge. As well, he addresses the barriers imposed by the human tendency to rely on vision as the sole means of experiencing the world.
Slowly, the narrator becomes interested by how the blind man carries himself and his abilities despite his handicap. During the meal the three were having, the narrator remarks, “I watched with admiration as he used his knife and fork on the meat” (103). After dinner, when they sit down to talk and hav...
The husband in Raymond Carvers “Cathedral” wasn’t enthusiastic about his wife’s old friend, whom was a blind man coming over to spend the night with them. His wife had kept in touch with the blind man since she worked for him in Seattle years ago. He didn’t know the blind man; he only heard tapes and stories about him. The man being blind bothered him, “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they were led by seeing-eye dogs. A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to. (Carver 137)” The husband doesn’t suspect his ideas of blind people to be anything else. The husband is already judging what the blind man will be like without even getting to actually know him. It seems he has judged too soon as his ideas of the blind man change and he gets a better understanding of not only the blind man, but his self as well.
This story, written as the thoughts of the narrator, is about an old blind friend of his wife’s coming to visit for the first time. The story focuses on the narrator’s cynicism toward the blind man and the way his wife seems to look up to him. Through out the visit there is halting interaction between the blind man and the narrator, however in the end the narrator experiences something he never could have imagined. Through the eyes of a blind man, he gains a better understanding of who he could be.
The narrator is extremely judgmental towards the blind and this creates negative preconceived notions about Robert. First, his idea of a blind man comes from movies he has watched and describes that the blind, “moved slowly and never laughed” (Par. 1). The narrator has a horrible attitude towards the blind and because of this he sees himself higher than any blind person. Second, he believes that when Robert’s wife was alive they both had no capability of loving each other solely because of Robert’s blindness. He thinks Robert cannot love because he had never “seen what the goddamned woman looked like” (Par. 16). The narrator then thinks Robert’s wife could not love him because she could “never see herself as she was seen in the eyes of her loved one” (Par. 16). This kind of harsh thinking that the narrator has towards Robert is detrimental to himself as well as those surrounding him. The narrator is trapped with judgmental thinking, making him hard to be around and cooperate with.
When defining the word blindness, it can be interpreted in various ways. Either it can be explained as sightless, or it can be carefully deciphered as having a more complex in-depth analysis. In the novel Blindness, Jose Saramago depicts and demonstrates how in an instant your right to see can be taken in an instant. However, in this novel, blindness is metaphorically related to ‘seeing’ the truth beyond our own bias opinions.
In Raymond Carver's "Cathedral," the husband's view of blind men is changed when he encounters his wife's long time friend, Robert. His narrow minded views and prejudice thoughts of one stereotype are altered by a single experience he has with Robert. The husband is changed when he thinks he personally sees the blind man's world. Somehow, the blind man breaks through all of the husband's jealousy, incompetence for discernment, and prejudgments in a single moment of understanding.
Shakespeare, T (2013) “The Social Model of Disability” in The Disabilty Studies Reader Ed Davis, L D. Routledge: New York
Milton’s poetic license entitles him to write as he pleases and therefore justifies his adaptation of an allegory into his epic. It is clearly apparent that Milton recognizes this privilege when...