Zampano Is Not Blind By Danielewski Summary

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.

He backs this up by saying that “If Zampano joined the French Foreign Legion to atone for his guilt, and instead piled up more guilt, perhaps he would end up seeking pity, rather than redemption. And what better way to get pity than by being blind? Come on, could you hate a blind man? Of course not. But wouldn't you if you knew he wasn't blind?”. This was interesting to me because it seems as if he does benefit by being blind, I am not convinced that Zampano is lying about being blind but I could see how he may be milking it for pity and attention. This led me to believe that perhaps Zampano is blind but his blindness refers to his inability to share the whole truth, but also literally his lack of