1. Saramago tells the story in third person (omniscient) because he wants to show us the readers how each character changed throughout the asylum. The author wants us to experience how the blindness affected their mental and physical abilities. What the characters been through and what feelings change with one another, Saramago shows the characters are even learning something along the way. The blindness is maybe a lesson for these people. It is a lesson because it shows horrifying truth about how soon the entire system and entire society crumbles to nothing if we lose just one of our senses. In addition, the author shows each character what they feel and been through so he can later on show that they end up turning heartless, or actually show their true personality.
2. The conventionalized punctuation shown has no effect on the novel because in the novel the author is explaining that this is the way we talk and the lack of quotation marks emphasizes the dialogue. The characters talk at once to show how they are afraid and are panicking in the quarantine. This is revealed in a conversation where people are in an actual disastrous situation, with seemingly everyone talking at the same time with voices filled with panic. There was not much dialogue because the less dialogue you understand what they are going through instead of see what they do you hear their voices all at once to make sure you heard what they did instead of visioning it in your mind. Saramago doesn’t identify the city in which been struck by the epidemic blindness or which street the first blind man was effected in because he wants us to understand that this disease can happen anywhere, and realize that these “names do not mean anything anymore. The author does not ...
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... This crudeness and the violence was enough to give me a stomachache repeatedly. This shows how society can change their emotional and physical behaviors when they lose one of their five senses. Through the narratives, perspective you assume the narrator has additionally went blind and is being guided by the doctor’s wife. To sum up this novel has affected me by the way we should actually view the world, even the smallest specs should also be consider beauty, and are vision of the world should be more caring then discarding.
OBJECT Blindfold: It represents temporary blindness the novel is not actually based on blindness. The novel uses blindness as a parable about society= the blindness represents how they see things as they are. The author uses the disease to assemble a story about human principles, disaster, and accomplishments that happen in our own society.
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.
It was painful to see how hard the parents worked to get Lynn to be normal like the rest of the family. They spent so much of their time focusing on getting her to talk and read lips that they overlooked one huge factor: that no matter how hard they tried, Lynn was deaf. It was so frustrating to see how much resistance they had towards using sign language. It was sad to see how disappointed the parents were when they learned of Lynn’s deafness even though it was easy to see they loved their child very much. I feel as though this book was a great look into how the world wants to fix, and repair people with disabilities and how strong and proud the deaf community is that they would rather consider themselves to be special and of their own culture than to be considered less abled than a hearing person. I like that the story started off with the parents frantically trying to fix Lynn, and ultimately led to their love, acceptance, and celebration of their daughter’s deafness. In the beginning of the book Thomas and Louise are told not to treat Lynn like she is deaf because then she will act
The narrator is biased against the blind from the beginning. For instance, he stereotypes all blind people thinking they ...
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 beginning the narrator’s tone is derisive, as though he’s mocking Robert’s being blind. The narrator sees Robert as a nuisance, getting in the way of him and his wife, whose past relationships with Robert and other men seem to irritate the narrator. “My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed…A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to,” (Carver 1). The narrator is inexperienced
Throughout the novel, Ralph Ellison used symbols to tell his story in a powerful and vivid way. He was successful in using literally devices that engaged and entertained his audience. The blindfold was a symbol of oppression as well as blacks’ struggle for equality and an ironic symbol of individuality and insight. Generally, the novel was able to deliver an important message about societies’ struggle for dominance on one hand; and a way of making oneself free from such brutal treatment. It clearly showed that respect for one another; and one’s identity is the only way of solving conflicts and a way to live in peace.
When most people think of blind people, they tend to picture a person with dark sunglasses, a seeing eye dog, and a walking stick. These are stereotypes and obviously do not remain true in the case of all blind people. In Raymond Carver’s short story “Cathedral," the main character is jealous and judgmental of his wife’s friend who happens to be a blind man. It is the combination of these attitudes that leads to his own unique “blindness." It is through this initial blindness, that the character gains his greatest vision.
The opening scene of the novel introduces the theme of blindness. As the narrator says, “When they approach me they see only my surroundings, themselves, or figments of their imagination-indeed, everything and anything except me,” (Ellison 3). This quote shows how people do not see the narrator. The narrator says that people “refuse” to see him. An example of this is when he bumps into a white man at night. The narrator says, "…when it occurred to me that the man had not seen me, actually, that he, as far as he knew, was in the middle of a walking nightmare!” (Ellison 4). This quote is an example of how people are blind and do not see the narrator. The narrator realizes that the man had insulted him because he did not see him. Blindness is a recurring theme in the novel, and shows how people refuse to see the truth in their community. Another example of blindness in the beginning of the novel is the battle royal that the narrator is forced to take part in. All of the fighters are blindfolded, and therefore are blind to see how the white people are taking advantage of them. Blindness is shown as a negative theme in the novel.
“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's short story “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. In his fairy tale Perrault prevents girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author elaborates a slightly revisited plot without altering the moral: young girls should beware of men; especially when they seem innocent.
In the first paragraph, the narrator also reveals his ignorance. He believes that all blind people are based on only what he has seen in movies, "My idea of blindness came from the movies. In the movies, the blind moved slowly and never laughed. Sometimes they are led by seeing-eye dogs “(104). The narrator was surprised when he noticed Robert was not like this. The narrator is also surprised when Robert lights a cigarette. He believes blind people don’t smoke because “they couldn’t see the smoke they exhaled” (108). The husband starts to feel more comfortable after this. The three of them sit down for dinner and the husbands is impressed with the how Robert is able to locate his food, cut with a knife, and eat properly. This is where the narrator’s outlook starts to undergo change.
“I've told her and I've told her: daughter, you have to teach that child the facts of life before it's too late” (Hopkinson 1). These are the first three lines of Nalo Hopkinson's fairy tale “Riding the Red”, a modern adaptation of Charles Perrault's “Little Red Riding Hood”. Perrault provided a moral to his fairy tales, the one from this one is to prevent girls from men's nature. In Hopkinson's adaptation, the goal remains the same: through the grandmother biographic narration, the author advances a revisited but still effective moral: beware of wolfs even though they seem innocent.
In literature, blindness serves a general significant meaning of the absence of knowledge and insight. In life, physical blindness usually represents an inability or handicap, and those people afflicted with it are pitied. The act of being blind can set limitations on the human mind, thus causing their perception of reality to dramatically change in ways that can cause fear, personal insecurities, and eternal isolation. However, “Cathedral” utilizes blindness as an opportunity to expand outside those limits and exceed boundaries that can produce a compelling, internal change within an individual’s life. Those who have the ability of sight are able to examine and interpret their surroundings differently than those who are physically unable to see. Carver suggests an idea that sight and blindness offer two different perceptions of reality that can challenge and ultimately teach an individual to appreciate the powerful significance of truly seeing without seeing. Therefore, Raymond Carver passionately emphasizes a message that introduces blindness as not a setback, but a valuable gift that can offer a lesson of appreciation and acceptance toward viewing the world in a more open-minded perspective.
Having this written in the first person allows the audience to have a more understanding. It also makes the reader feel like they are in the book. Although if this book were to be written in the third person the text would carry on forever and you also would not understand to its full potential.
By using the third person omniscient point of view, the narrator is able to render the characters with information related both from direct description and from the other character's revelations. This way, the description remains unbiased, but at the same time coherent with how the various characters see it. For example, after the narrator tells us that "He was an only child, eleven years old. She was a widow. She was determined to be neither possessive nor lacking in devotion.", we are able to understand why the boy is so emotionally attached to his mother and, at the beginning, unwilling to ask her for permission to go to his beach and, later in the story, unwilling to let her know about his adventure through the tunnel. This also explains why the mother let him go without questions, even if she was very worried about him.
I found the events that took place challenging. It was not that I could not understand, but that the content was difficult to swallow. Prior to reading this novel, I had never before thought of this kind of oppression in any context other than what was given to me in the news. I of course new of this kind of abuse from simple history books and in the news, but it didn’t have any “life”. This book brought “life” to an abusive and oppressive situation. It became very personal to me as the reader as I read through it. This book strongly impacted me, and me relook and rethink parts of our worlds history and to try and imagine the unimaginable.