Blindness in literature

From TheBestLinks.com

Different cultures through history have depicted blindness in a variety of ways; among the Greeks, for example, it was a punishment from the gods, for which the afflicted individual was often granted compensation in the form of artistic genius. Judeo-Christian literature positioned blindness as a flaw; only through a cure could God’s love be made manifest, when the scales would fall away from the eyes of an afflicted individual upon contact with a holy man or relic. Almost without exception in early literature, blind people could bring this condition down upon themselves through sin or trespasses against the gods, but were never the sole instruments of its reversal.

It is impossible to make a blanket generalization about how the blind were treated in literature beyond that point - they were marvelous, gifted, evil, malicious, ignorant, wise, helpless, innocent, or burdensome depending upon who wrote the story - except to say that blindness is perceived to be such a loss that it leaves an indelible mark on a person’s character.

Even pioneers in training the blind, such as Dorothy Harrison Eustis, harboured negative stereotypes about them. Blind people had, in her opinion, grown so accustomed to waiting on others as to be passive and 'whiney.'

Father Thomas Carroll, who founded the Carroll Centre for the Blind, wrote Blindness: What It Is, What It Does and How to Live with It in 1961. In it, he characterized blindness in terms of 20 losses, and as the “death” of the sighted individual.

One of the most famous short stories about blind people is "In The Country of the Blind" by H.G. Wells, in which blind people are depicted as self-sufficient but close-minded and potentially cruel. A sited man finds himself in a country which has been closed off to the rest of the world for centuries, and whose inhabitants had all become blind and had been blind for generations. They have evolved into human beings with other sharp senses, do not understand the use of eyes and believe that their village is the only place in the world. They want to cut the stranger's eyes out, but the story ends happily as he escapes. The reader is left admiring the resourcefullness of the blind people but despairing because of their unwillingness to understand non-blind people.

Literature by blind people

While blind and visually impaired people had contributed to the body of common literature for centuries, the creation of autobiographical materials, or materials specific to blindness, is relatively new.

Most people are familiar with Helen Keller, who was both blind and deaf, but there has been considerable progress since the publication of her work.

Blind author Tom Sullivan has written several inspirational books, including If You Could See What I Hear, about his life and accomplishments.
Stephen Kuusisto wrote about his experiences as a visually impaired person in Planet of the Blind.
John Hull, a university lecturer, wrote about going blind in Touching the Rock: An Experience of Blindness.
Georgina Kleege, visually impaired since age 11, wrote about her life and how it was affected by cultural perceptions of blindness in Sight Unseen.
Sally Hobart Alexander became blind when she was about 25 and a schoolteacher, during the 1970s, because of an eye disease. Wrote at least three autobiographical books about adapting to blindness.
Jacques Lusseyran French author who became blind at the age of 7 by smashing his eyes on the sharp corner of a teacher's desk. Lusseyran later became part of the French resistance during World War II, spent a year in concentration camps and then wrote several books, most notably "And There Was Light" about his experiences from his early childhood until he was liberated from the concentration camps.

Links

Blindness: Is Literature Against Us? (http://www.blind.net/bpba1974.htm)

An Overview of the Blind in Literature and Movies (http://www.planetkilmer.com/rr/august2001/valteamo/)

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