The French Metanarrative of Blindness

Abstract

Thompson surveys literary depictions of blindness which reinforce the “metanarrative of blindness” discussed by David Bolt. She shows how Maupassant’s short story ‘The Blind Man’ evokes the blindness-ignorance and blindness-darkness synonymies whilst also using nominalization and generalization to dehumanize its protagonist. In a detailed and insightful analysis of a selection of French novels, she shows how blind male characters are represented as weaker, less active and less able to access language than their non-blind peers. Female blind characters, on the other hand, are often portrayed as meek and passive victims of their condition. Non-blind characters routinely trick, pity and manipulate blind characters in these typhlophobic fictions of blindness. The chapter ends with an analysis of André Gide’s The Pastorale Symphony, which shows how myths of the blind mystic and of sensory compensation emphasize blind protagonists’ otherness.