Blindness House of Leaves by Mark Z Danielewski is a difficult read that forced me to question many things, who is speaking, where are we located, and even when are we located, but Zampano’s lack of vision is something I did not think to question until I came across the forum post titled, “Zampano is not blind” written by user “Hello?”. The post is expertly summed up in the title, as it suggests that perhaps Zampano is lying about his blindness. I come across another similarly themed post titled, “Blind?”, written by user “Kiranne” in which he suggests that Zampano chose to be blind, so as to ignore some unexplained guilt. I chose to explore the meaning of the word blind and discovered that blind as a noun is defined as “Anything which obstructs the light or sight”. I use this definition and both forum posts to argue that Zampano’s blindness is a metaphor for the absence of truth in his narration.
In both short stories, “Cathedral” written by Raymond Carver and “A Good Man is Hard to Find” written by Flannery O’Connor, we encounter characters that have a limited perspective on life. We find that the unnamed narrator in “Cathedral” has a bias mindset towards the blind man, Robert before he even meets and gets to know him. While in “A Good Man is Hard to Find,” the grandmother is ignorant of her surroundings while being oblivious to her own flaws. Both stories demonstrate the overcoming of blindness through prejudice and vanity to end up seeing something greater than themselves through the use of characterization, symbolism, and epiphanies. In “Cathedral,” the narrator’s wife invites her blind friend, Robert, to stay in their home
When blindness is referenced the first thought that comes up is the actual disability. Blindness doesn’t always come in the form of a physical impairment but can often times have a figurative meaning. Sophocles, J.C. Oates and Nathaniel Hawthorne demonstrate this act of figuratively referencing blindness in “Oedipus the King,” Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” and “Young Goodman Brown.” Although some may say that the truth will set you free, for the characters in these stories it decides their fates. The story of “Oedipus the King,” tells a tale of the great ruler of Thebes who has become the culprit of a plaque that is among the city.
The narrator had never meet a blind person before and believed in the stereotypes. The narrator said “A blind man in my house was not something I looked forward to” (Carver 331), in the last sentence of the first paragraph. For the narrator, there should be no problem letting a blind man into the house. Throughout this short story the husband continues to make short remarks to the old blind man, as well as keeping a routine for making comments to the blind man. For the reader it is really easy not to pay attention to the story and instantly get annoyed.
To what extent does food as a motif represent structure and bonds among characters in the novel? Paradise Of The Blind, written by Duong Thu Huong tells the story of a young Vietnamese girl in the 1980s. As Hang travels to Moscow by train she recounts her life experiences and contemplates on her past during the corrupt communist reign. The novel describes events through Hang’s perspective and illustrates her childhood memories using various motifs. Particularly, food is used as the most recurring and notable motif.
“Cathedral” The essay “Cathedral”, by Robert Carver, is about a man who is unsure of a blind gentleman named Robert that is coming to stay in his home for the weekend. His wife met Robert when she was reading to the blind. The narrator of the story who remains unnamed through the essay is not happy about Robert coming to stay in his home. He thought all blind people were the same and Robert taught him what it was like to be blind.
In Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral,” written in 1983, the author points out that empathy and perspective are the only way to truly experience profound emotion. The narrator is struggling is sucked into his own comfort zone, he drowns his dissatisfaction on life, marriage, and job in alcohol. A man of limited awareness breaks through his limitations by socializing with a blind man. Despite Roberts physical limitations, he is the one who saved narrator from himself and helped him to find the ones vies of the world.
From that moment, the narrator show his true side to me. It shows that he doesn’t not care about his wife feeling toward the blind man. After carefully reading “cathedral”, the narrator is jealous of the blind man relationship with his
“His being blind bothered me” (Carver 1). In Raymond Carver’s short story Cathedral, Carver establishes an ignorant narrator, who is dependent on alcohol and fixated upon physical appearance; he juxtaposes the narrator to a blind man who sees with his heart rather than his eyes. Through indirect characterization, Carver contrasts the narcissistic narrator to the intuitive blind man while utilizing sight as a symbol of emotional understanding. He establishes the difference between looking and seeing to prove that sight is more than physical.
In “Cathedral” by Raymond Carver, the narrator struggles with an internal conflict that involves him never being able to be in a vulnerable or sensitive state, especially when he is with his wife. The narrator creates suspense by having the reader wait until the end to realize what the blind man was referring to when he states, “From all you’ve said about him, I can only conclude—” (Carver 35). The reader can observe that the blind man was explaining that the husband was missing out on all aspects of life and the little things the world has to offer. The husband was so closed-minded, that he was missing out on having a deeper connection with his wife.
Narrated in the first person, Raymond Carver’s “Cathedral” is bound to unfold due to the thoughts and feelings of one of the main characters, the husband. Expectedly, the conflict revolves around him and the way he responds to the conflict leads
In Jorge Luis Borgers essay, “ Blindness” The author writes to reflect on blindness is not anything you can’t live with or as a negative situation of your life. Though his primary audience is everybody who can see but are not appreciating their ability to see, or also anybody who is scared of blindness. The author's purpose is to make the reader value that they can see, and to make the encourage the reader to not be afraid of blindness. The author does this through using his own story about being blind, then he goes back to what he is trying to persuade and also he talks about different blind people whom have been successful in the way they don’t fall back for being blind. Through an inspiring yet sometimes insulated tone, Borges encourages
“I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And being blind bothered me” (104) The narrator has no knowledge of experiencing seeing a blind person. “My idea of blindness came from the movies” (104).
The short story “Seeing Eye” written by Brad Watson tells of a blind man and his service dog. The setting of the story takes place at a stop light, the dog is helping his owner cross the street. Instead of the story being told from the man’s point of view, it is told from the dog’s eyes. This point of view challenges the status quo because the dog is telling the story of what he sees, smells and hears. The short story uses descriptive diction and imagery to give the reader the unique picture of what the dog is thinking and feeling.
Sometimes in life people can be “blind” to the truth. The answer to their question or solution to their worry or problem may have been obvious yet, they could not “see” the answer. Therefore, they were blind to the truth. This blindness is not one in a physical sense but another kind of sight or vision. In Sophocles’ writing, Tiresias is a blind prophet that presents the truth to King Oedipus.
