Class responses to Borges' "Blindness" and McGraw's "Bad Eyes"

  Borges' overall idea is how he "overcame" his blindness by finding many other things (such as poetry) to occupy his thoughts.  His affliction never slowed him down, from the sound of it, and he lets his memory be the most important thing.  McGraw almost relishes her problems with her eyes.  She finds lots of interesting insights into being "blind," and almost revels in the idea of it, using it as fodder for the piece.

  Borges' persona is significantly more positive--presenting blindness as something that gives an added edge to life.  McGraw, on the other hand, constantly focuses on the problems she has with not being able to see and how lazy she gets by depending on help from others.   Borges is more insightful.  Something is at work in McGraw's essay as nothing being gained except the notice that she has to "look" harder.  The theme of getting further away dominates McGraw's essay whereas Borges gets closer in his depiction of blindness. 

  McGraw portrays herself as she struggles with sight and comes to depend on others not only to see but to interpret things for her.  Borges lectures about the possibilities that come with blindness--a mystery that is a progression of solitude.  He feels that he is surrounded by the kindness felt toward the blind.  McGraw learns that she needs to regain a little of the independence that sight brings by evaluating for herself, too.   She knows that she cannot control her vision, but she is able to function.   She just needs to use caution--as we all do.  Moral tone.  Borges seems fascinated by the concept of blindness and the solitude that follows.

  Borges and McGraw refuse to let blindness be a handicap.  They use it as an instrument.

  McGraw sees only part of the picture--different interpretations.  Borges doesn't let this "inconvenience" limit his outlook entirely--"my own modest blindness."   He creates new ways of seeing through literature.

  Borges seems to speak of his blindness openly and of the gifts that it has given him.  He relates his blindness to a way of seeing life and the way people see the world.  For a long time McGraw saw her impaired vision as a problem.  It wasn't until later in life that she began to see with her eyes.  She never seemed to be comfortable with her vision--or her lack of it.

  The tone of "Blindness" is one of acceptance.  Borges has accepted his blindness as a way of life rather than a disability or a misfortune, as he puts it.  His blindness has inspired in him a desire to write poetry and a book in which he is able to "praise" the darkness.  This acceptance of the way things are is similar to the persona presented to us by McGraw in her essay "Bad Eyes."  The overall part of her view on things that really stands out to me is her readiness to keep looking.   If she doesn't see it the first time, she looks again.  She has realized that world is not always what it looks like on the surface.  These two versions of a persona both speak volumes about the strength found in being blind.

  Both seem rather good-natured about their blindness.  McGraw: detached, funny, a hint of the terrible pain but subdued; very personable, well-balanced and not complaining.   Borges: elegant, definitely more literary--he draws on literary figures and references rather than dwell on his own experience of going blind (though he addresses it indirectly when talking about other blind artists).

POSTSCRIPT.  Consider the following observations about Borges from
Jorge Luis Borges & the Plural I by Eric Ormsby:

There was after all something of the exemplum, if not exactly the
saint, in Borges. In unexpected moments on a college stage or on
some talk show, the Borgesian oracle would fall silent, and a
personage of sly, calm, mischievous, and yet gentle demeanor
would peer forth from his sightless eyes. Anecdotes abound; I give
only one example from the large (and growing) literature. On his
first visit to the desert in North Africa, Borges is seen sifting sand
grains through his fingers and, when asked what he is doing,
replies, “I am rearranging the Sahara.” Such tales, whimsical, a bit
sardonic, cryptic even, resemble the tales of the ancient
philosophers as much as the tales of the Hasidim (a sect Borges
identified with). Except for Kafka, no other modern writer has
become as emblematic of himself and his own curious world as
Borges has.

How extraordinary that so many-selved, so ultimately vaporous, a
personage as Borges, or “Borges,” should come to play this role.
What other modern author was routinely quizzed for his views on
time and memory, the enigma of personality, the possibility of an
afterlife and personal immortality, among other ponderous topics,
as was Borges? He cheerfully declared that he held no belief in an
afterlife and that he personally welcomed the inevitable oblivion
that would engulf his own name, as if extinction alone offered an
escape from the claustrophobia of infinitude. “No one is
someone,” he wrote in “The Immortal,” “a single immortal man is
all men. Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, hero, philosopher,
demon, and world—which is a long-winded way of saying that I
am not.” Dignified despite his dishevelment, his crumpled fedora
in one hand, his inquisitive white cane in the other, Seņor Borges,
our improbable psychopomp, shows us the way into unanimous
night.


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