Blind to Fail

Blind to fail

In the poem, “Parable of the Blind”, by William Carlos William, blindness inflicts both the freedom of thought and blindness also mentally hinders man’s judgment to reason for himself in order to succeed. William Carlos William uses blindness to portray the failures that society will create through the blind dependence on one another. William does not know in fact that an event will occur, but he brings into play the aspects of being blind, and the direction being blind leads to, in order to illustrate his belief on society’s future.

The speaker of the poem starts out by commenting “This horrible but superb painting” (1) to complement the features hidden in the painting that another spectator would not. Bringing on a hidden meaning in the painting that another spectator could not decipher himself shows the blindness of another spectator’s narrow perspective. If one has a narrow perspective, he is also blind to the ideas and viewpoint of another person’s.

The speaker is able to see the painting for what it is, “the parable of the blind/ without a red” (2-3). The speaker has knowledge on what “the parable of the blind” (2) is. A parable is a short story that has a moral. Knowing this, the speaker goes on to describe the parable as “without a red” (3). Red is a very lively vibrant color linking to fire, a very miniscule scale of the sun. The sun sheds light, and also allows man to see. Light is a great symbol of guidance and enlightenment. The parable “without a red” (3) is lacking a guiding light. The blind in the parable are lacking a guiding light. William links this with society because he believes society also lacks a sense of direction towards a destination.

Imagery connects to the lack of range in perspective and connects to the lack of thought. Often, beggars are associated with being poor in material. “Beggars” (5) represent the poor in society. Beggars are not only people poor in possessions, but also people who lack the ability to think for themselves and are be blinded by the teachings of others. To William, society is filled with people lacking the ability to think for themselves and therefore has to rely on another source of reason, a reason that may be blind and misleading on its own.

According to the speaker, the beggars lead “each other diagonally downward” (6) “into a bog” (9). William uses this to exemplify society’s tendencies to follow a wrong idea or leader, and ultimately, this blindness in following a wrong path leads to the downfall to society. The speaker creates an image from “diagonally downward” (6). The speaker uses the word “downward”(6) to foreshadow to downfall of the beggars. The beggars are blind to their fate to stumble into the bog. Similarly, society is doomed to fail unless society does not blindly follow the ideas of one another.

In the painting, a “cottage is seen and a church spire” (18) is in the distance. A cottage is a home, a place to grow ideas and beliefs that one can believe in without having to rely on the ideas of another. The cottage is ironic because its symbol is to believe in one’s own belief while the line of beggars represents their reliance of ideas on one another. The cottage is a symbol of trying to make a person not blind by creating a light, or belief, by himself, for himself. The cottage, being present in the poem and painting, is also ironic because the cottage is hardly noticeable at all in the painting. The church is a symbol of religion, a set way of life and a set authoritative way of thinking. To be constricted in idea is being blind to other types of thought.

Some failures in life and in society are due to the reliance people have on one another. To stop this type of failure, a person must find his own way to achieve success. If a person is tied down by a set way of thinking, a religion, he won’t be able to think for himself beyond the boundaries of the religion unless he begins thinking a little bit for himself.