Blindness

[anthonywang]

On page 390, the author writes, “To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness.” What did you learn or realize about blindness through Marie-Laure’s perspective? Do you think her being blind offered her any advantages? Or, do you think being blind gave her any disadvantages?

[Hibah]

The blindness is like an advantage because even though she can not see the actual colors of the world, she can make up any color she want to see. She also has an advantage in her other senses because we depend mostly on our eyesight, but without her eyesight to lead her, she has to depend on her other senses. While she can make up any color, I think she feels saddened by this because she will never again see the real world, only imagine it and feel it.

[Holly]

To expand off of Hibah's ideas, I believe that Marie-Laure did face many challenges having to do with her disability, but after overcoming each one, it offered her more knowledge. She had a greater sense of the world around her that people with even perfect eyesight might not have.

[hannahdorros]

The idea of Marie-Laure's blindness at first seems to be a major disadvantage with all the things going on around her. She has to learn how to navigate on her own and her father must sacrifice much more for her. That said I believe her blindness was a gift. It allowed her to create her own interpretations of what the new world around her was like, instead of "judging a book by it's cover." I also believe it allowed her to make strong connections with certain characters, such as Etienne Leblanc. As Etienne LeBlanc and Marie-Laure both have vivid imaginations it allows them to benefit and learn from each other.

[emilia]

When you first think of it, being blind seems like quite a disadvantage. As the story is told about Marie-Laure, you start to tell that being blind isn't all a disadvantage. Throughout the book, she shows that although she is blind, it's not a burden and it won't stop her from exploring new horizons. As shown in the story when a paper flier hits her shutter and she is able to decipher how long it has been in the air just by smelling it. This proves that being blind heightened her other senses. She has some abilities that others with eyesight don't have.

[Emma Kaer]

I believe blindness gave her many disadvantages throughout the story. Many people in her shoes wouldn't stand a chance without sight in a time like this. She learned from a very young age, from a very good teacher, how to deal with everything around her without her sight. She may not have been able to see but throughout the book, she didn't' show many signs that she used her blindness as a way of pity, if anything she ignored it. She didn't dwell on everything she didn't have or couldn't see she just dealt with it, she just survived.

[Kaylee Buntyn]

Being Blind means that your sense of sight does not work, but it also means that your other senses are heightened and working better then normal because they are making up for the lacking of the other. Just because you cannot see with your eyes it does not mean you cannot see with your ears and with your sense of touch or with taste and smell. Marie-Laure although she did not see the world like everyone else managed the same. Reading this book through her "eyes" at some points made me realize that she is no different then anyone else who lived during the war.

[ariokamura]

I don't believe that blindness gave her any advantages or disadvantages because it was only a condition that she had to live with. Throughout the book no one really degrades her for her physical condition but no one also doesn't talk to her in detail about it. It helps that she can't see the violence but she also experience anything completely by herself. It's a different side of the same coin. It all balances out in the end.

[sofiamq123]

I agree with Ariana, her blindness is neither an advantage nor a disadvantage it is just the way life is for her.However, I do believe that the author makes her blind not only to show that one can keep living lie with blindness, but he also does it to be able to give the a feeling of what it feels like to be blind in a way to readers. If you think about it while you are reading the book you hear all of these descriptions of these beautiful settings that you cannot see. The reader is only left frustrated like Marie-Lure, and can only imagine what it looks like. Marie-Lure's blindness also gives a chance for the author to use a literary device, imagery, every time that Marie-Lure asks for a description of a setting the character she asks describes the place in great detail making Marie-Lure and the reader almost be able to see it.