Blindness

[ellahardiee]

On page 390, Doerr writes "To shut your eyes is to guess nothing of blindness." What advantages does Marie-Laure have due to her blindness? How would her character be different had she been able to see?

[Carolyn]

Since Marie-Laure is blind her other senses get stronger. Her sense of touch and hearing become more sensitive to make up for her loss os sight. Since her hearing becomes more sensitive Marie-Laure was able to hear that von Rumpel was limping, so when he showed up at her house she knew to hide because she recognized that he was a German. Yes, she could have simply seen that he was German but she would have needed to get closer to see him which was a bigger risk. Marie-Laure is probably more cautious because she is blind too, if she were able to see she may be more daring and might have gotten caught by von Rumpel. On the other hand though, sight has it's advantages. For example, when Marie left the attic to go get water from her room she had to worry about tripping on her way back up, but if she were able to see that would not have been a problem at all. If she were able to see she would not seem so innocent, her personality would be much different.

[isabelleansberry]

I agree that Marie-Laure has a strong advantage over others with her sense of hearing and touch, even though she struggles with blindness. Marie-Laure is a very curious person, and asks many questions all throughout the book, and I think those characteristics relate to her inability to see. For example, when Marie-Laure and her father were fleeing Paris in the beginning of the book, she was continuously plaguing her father with questions about what was happening and where they were going, since she couldn't see her surroundings and the terrible things happening all around her with the war. I believe that if she wasn't blind, her character would change and she wouldn't be as inquisitive and questioning. Also, I think Marie-Laure has to be more trusting and relying of other people, and if she wasn't blind, she would probably be more skeptical, especially during the time of the war.

[anthonywang]

To me, blindness has always been something that is scary. Not knowing your surroundings, not knowing how to get around frightens me. To see Marie-Laure and how she lived fascinated me. It’s as if the loss of one of her senses heightened the others, which can be seen as an advantage in some cases. Her tactile ability amazed me. I loved that her father made her the puzzles each year and that she was able to open them every time, only by touch. Marie-Laure’s sense of hearing was impeccable too. Right from the start of the book, we read about a paper flier hitting her shutter. Simply by holding it, she knows by its crispness that it is not old and hasn’t been in the air long. By its smell she can detect fresh ink and gasoline. That is something that many would have overlooked. I was quite impressed with how Marie-Laure got around as well; simply by counting her steps throughout the town. Overall, Marie-Laure’s blindness showed me that a loss of sight is not something that can ever stop you from “seeing” the world. You just experience it on different levels, and I would even venture to say, that in Marie-Laure’s case that it is experienced in a manner that is far deeper than I have experienced. With sight we often take things as we see them, at face value. Remove your vision and your world now has to be “viewed” completely differently.

[keelylipp]

Blindness is an advantage for Marie-Laure because she hears and feels things that others don't. Her ability to analyze and detect what people are saying works to her advantage when Germans are in Saint-Malo and people are trying to shade the truth from her. Her other senses are more engaged because she lost her sight and needs to make up for the lost sense. Her ability to navigate the streets of a town based on touch and studying her father's models is far more advanced than a person with sight who is blindfolded.

[Madeleine Stewart]

Marie-Laure has an advantage being blind because she has stronger senses. Also she does not have to see what is going on, which makes things ten times more frightening. Though it makes things more scary it makes her even stronger. She is really in touch with her other senses. Her hearing and touch is solid. Her strength can also be a weakness, because she cannot see what is happening. A lot of her experiences would be so different if her sight was present. Most of the foundation for her characters journey through the story would be lost.  

[faithadler]

Naturally as a blind person, Liesel's other senses are heightened. In most situations, it seems that Liesel's sense of hearing well nearly makes up for her lack of eyesight. I believe that if Liesel wasn't blind, she most definately would not have been raised in the same way, and would result in a lack of inquisitiveness and general interest in the world, what surrounds her. Having been raised not able to see what was going on around her, she had to learn different ways to identify where she was and what was happening. Without these skills, the novel would have been greatly different.

[simonplotkin]

Her blindness not only heightened her other sense, but also changed the way she perceived the world. "A flock of gulls squalls overhead. Each of the hundred thousand tiny grains in her fists grinds against its neighbor (Doerr 232)." Because she cannot see, her first visit to the ocean was brand new. She had now previous experience of seeing it. Instead of being encapsulated by the majesty of the massive body of water, Marie-Laure provides attention to the smallest parts of the beach, the parts that people walk over to get somewhere else. Her up close and personal approach turns the beach into a world in and of itself where she can take part in a plethora of new experiences all by herself. "She feels her father pick her up and spin her around three times (Doerr 232)." Her father is in prison at this time, but this entirely new place provides a sense of nostalgia. It creates such joy that it reminds her of her father.

[Baaz Jhaj]

Marie Laure has the advantages of better touch, sound, and smell. It also developed her sense of perception and analysis.

[alexhammond]

Marie-Laure had the requirement to use her brain in a more advanced manner due to her blindness. Her memory was trained to be more advanced due to the necessity to memorize her neighborhood she lived in and how it 'felt' to live there and find her way home. A large part of her personality is her ability to 'know you' by just your presence, she was insanely in tuned to her surroundings which gave her the ability be aware of your mood, not just how you were trying to make the world see you. If she could have seen, she would have, like most with vision, judge you based on your appearance and body language, yet without vision she didn't have anything distracting her from finding out who someone really is. She had naturally heightened senses which made her very aware of ones tone, or what those she could not see were doing. If she was just blindfolded (and had her vision), she would not have the ability to hear out her surroundings. Her blindness made her rely on mainly hearing, so she could almost always know what was going on around her, dark of light, blind or not.

[alexhammond]

Marie-Laure had the requirement to use her brain in a more advanced manner due to her blindness. Her memory was trained to be more advanced due to the necessity to memorize her neighborhood she lived in and how it 'felt' to live there and find her way home. A large part of her personality is her ability to 'know you' by just your presence, she was insanely in tuned to her surroundings which gave her the ability be aware of your mood, not just how you were trying to make the world see you. If she could have seen, she would have, like most with vision, judge you based on your appearance and body language, yet without vision she didn't have anything distracting her from finding out who someone really is. She had naturally heightened senses which made her very aware of ones tone, or what those she could not see were doing. If she was just blindfolded (and had her vision), she would not have the ability to hear out her surroundings. Her blindness made her rely on mainly hearing, so she could almost always know what was going on around her, dark of light, blind or not.

[jackh]

Being blind, Marie-Laure had a hard time going about her daily life. I took many months just to learn how to get to the Museum that they visited daily. To her, the world spun at a constant rate, never changing, just a slew of daily tasks. She talks about how she heard the same "bonjour" every morning, and talked with the same scientists, wandered the same museum, ate the same things, and got the same gifts. To Marie-Laure, all the life was repeating the previous day. This gave her an inherit disadvantage when everything went awry, and she was out of place walking for days and sleeping on the road. After she asserted herself in her new town, she developed new creature comforts that fit her new life. She took the same route to and from the bakery, always visited the snails, and always finished in under 32 minutes. She had an advantage, in a way, because using her daily routines she stayed comfortable, even in times of unrest.