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Social contract theory and its effects
Social contract theory and its effects
Social contract theory and its effects
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Blindness as Foresight
Siobhan Barton
107248031
Essay 3
Jose Saramago’s Blindness depicts an epidemic that strips humans of sight without warning and leaves the subject vulnerable to both physical and emotional peril. The novel, which follows the lives of several unnamed people struck blind in an unspecified country, uses an ambiguous yet hauntingly familiar allegory to illuminate the fragile social reality in which we live and the animalistic instincts we refuse to acknowledge. Using sight as a literal and metaphorical symbol for social contract, Saramago suggests that absence of sight leads to self-reflection and illuminates social responsibility.
Thomas Hobbes wrote in Leviathan that men are in an equal state of nature. Because of this equality, men are “willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defence of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself" (XIV). It is from our state of nature, or our instinctual need to preserve ourselves, he says, that humans develop a social contract of governing rules which governs society rather than the individual (XIV). In Blindness, society begins to crumble because it cannot govern the blind the same way it governed the seeing, and the social contract is reset.
In light of the iconoclastic illness, Saramago forces his characters to consider the causes and effects of each decision, and puts into perspective how each individual action has a social reaction. The car thief, knowing no one can see him, succumbs to his animal instincts and gropes of the girl with the dark glasses. In retaliation, she punctures his leg with her heeled...
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...r individuality. Upon realizing he or she is part of a larger group, the blindness makes it apparent that one must assume a certain responsibility for his or her actions. As we saw with the car thief, to act selfishly without consciousness of our actions is inconsistent with survival.
“Perhaps only in a world of the blind will things be what they truly are” (291). Saramago introduces an unexplained and seemingly random epidemic of blindness to illuminate that current society functions solely because it operates upon efficient symbiosis. By depriving humans of only one corporeal faculty, Saramago turns society upside down. If his book had a thesis, it would be that one small change in functionality could send us spiraling into primitivism, and in order to preserve humanity, it is our job to act only according to the consequences we are willing to see come to pass.
The book Blind, written by Rachel DeWoskin, is about a highschool sophomore named Emma, who went blind after being struck in the face with a firework. When she first lost her sight, Emma was placed in a hospital for over 2 months, and once she was released, she could finally go home again. DeWoskin uses the characterization of Emma throughout the beginning of the text to help the reader understand the character’s struggle more. Especially in the first few chapters, it was difficult for Emma to adapt to a world without sight. For instance, DeWoskin writes, “And sat down, numb, on our gold couch. And tried to open my eyes, rocked, counted my legs and arms and fingers. I didn’t cry. Or talk” (DeWoskin 44). As a result of losing a very important scent, she’s started to act differently from a person with sight.
The author Edward Bloor utilizes blindness to symbolize how Paul may be visually impaired but can see social injustice, while Erik and his parents’ can see but are blind to the emotional harm they inflict on Paul and others, and the townspeople are blind to their environment and social prejudice. He has been bullied most of his life for being visually impaired. Paul is used to being judged by others. The injury to his eyes supposedly occurred while looking at a solar eclipse, but there is more to this story.
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.
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.
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.
After reading this book I wondered what it would be like to be blind then gain sight, but realize you cannot see yourself because you are invisible. It seems like a cruel joke that once you can see you realize that you still cannot see who you are. Even though this seems like a very depressing event Ellison makes it seem like a positive thing. While, at the end of the story, the narrator still does not know his place in the world he seems to be glad that he is no longer blindfolded. He even questions the reader's ability to see, "Who knows but that, on some lower frequencies, I speak for you?" What Ellison does well is the evolution of the narrator's blindness.
In the non- fiction Novel," Girl, Stolen", by April Henry we learn that having something traumatic happen to you can change the whole outcome of your life. When a teen girl ends up blind from an accident that flips her whole world around she has to tend to help. Though she doesn't she see herself any different from a regular person people see her disability. Though many people see disabilities as a problem that won't put a label on someone's will to fight.
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.
Have you ever felt the need to share your problems to make people understand what you’re going through? In Latin American literature, blindness is illustrated as a theme with the use of imagery. The three most frequent types of imagery that are used include: visual, audible, and tactile. Especially in Jorge Borges’ short stories and poems, descriptive language is used to convey the reoccurring theme of blindness.
„h The doctor¡¦s wife asks if ¡§blindness is¡K to live in a world without hope¡¨(145) and later realizes that ¡§we are blind, Blind that see¡¨(292).
Wyndham uses quotes such as that above to allow the reader to consider what the consequences would be, and also to work on the conscience of the receiving character. Wyndham considers how the people of the world would cope in such a disastrous situation with an overwhelming majority of the population being blind, where the small proportion still sighted are relied on by numbers of one thousand to one for the survival of the human race. He focuses on the devotion and responsibility it would take, to in effect, save civilization as we now know it.
One might think a progressing blind man may feel depressed and highly upset about his condition, but for one man this is not the case. In the essay “Blindness”, written by Argentinian Jorge Luis Borges, talks about his perspective of being literally blind and talks about blindness figuratively. Through his primary audience, which is people who know little to no knowledge about being blind, and people with disabilities themselves. Borges purpose is a moving meditation on being visually impaired and to explain how being blind isn’t a misfortune, but an amazing opportunity to look at the world in a different light. The author does this by using personal anecdotes about his grandmother and father and using many allusions along with pathos to
It is hypothesized that the general public perceives visually impaired people as being unable to communicate verbally when they are not alone.
In this world, there are many aspects of blindness whether it is mentally or physically. Either way, each blindness brings out the disability in each person. Such portrayal was shown throughout the play The Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare presents more than one form of blindness, which complicates the social order of the society, and I feel that the blindness, being their imperfection, creates tension between characters, which is weakened by blindness. When the characters are being blind, they are corrupted by their actions and somehow they do not care who they are hurting as long as they know they are getting the best out of something. Whether it being valuables, love, power, or respect.