The poem "Blindness" is narrated by an old man who first observes a girl in a stage coach. Here are some notes you might make while annotating the poem.
The narrator notes the girl seems distracted and "her mind seemed busy on some childish thought." She is not looking out at the scene passing by. In the second stanza, the narrator asks the girl to look at some object they are passing. In the third...
The poem "Blindness" is narrated by an old man who first observes a girl in a stage coach. Here are some notes you might make while annotating the poem.
The narrator notes the girl seems distracted and "her mind seemed busy on some childish thought." She is not looking out at the scene passing by. In the second stanza, the narrator asks the girl to look at some object they are passing. In the third stanza, the child tells the man she is blind. He thinks, "Never did tongue of child utter a sound/ So mournful." The narrator says, "her words fell on my ear," as if the words are physical objects that can land on his ear with a dispiriting thud.
In the last two stanzas, the focus shifts to the mother, who tells the narrator how she found out that her daughter is blind. One day, her daughter lay aside her needlework, and her mother reproached her for doing so. Her daughter then said, "I cannot work, mamma, now it is night," even though it was daylight. There are images of light and dark in the last stanza, as the daughter says it is night while light shines upon her. This contrast between light and dark is a literal and symbolic representation of the dark world in which the daughter now lives.
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