I would want to argue that the narrator of this story does
not actually change his ideas and preconceptions and ideas about blindness until the
very end of the story, when Robert asks him to close his eyes and he realises that he is
able to actually "see" even with his eyes closed. Up until this stage, the narrator is
presented as insulting, greeting his wife's friend with rudeness and then turning the
television on when he knows that Robert cannot see what is going on. As they watch the
programme about cathedrals together, the narrator feels the need to describe what is
happening for Robert, showing that he has a conventional understanding of blindness. It
is only when Robert asks him to draw a cathedral with him, and then to do it with his
eyes closed that the narrator experiences a kind of an epiphany and he realises that
there are other forms of seeing that are not strictly linked to
eyes:
So we
kept on with it. His fingers rode my fingers as my hand went over the paper. It was like
nothing else in my life up to
now.
Even when Robert tells
the narrator to open his eyes, the narrator keeps them shut, as he feels "it was
something I ought to do." Even though he knows he is inside his house, closing his eyes
and experiencing blindness gives him a real feeling of liberty and openness, as he says
"I didn't feel like I was inside anything." It is thus this point in the novel that
helps the narrator to radically reassess his own views on blindness as a limitation. His
limited experience of it helps him to discover that in some ways blindness is a
liberation.
No comments:
Post a Comment