Fairy Tale Spotlight: The Man Born Blind [Short Story Review]

[I entirely spoil this story.]

"The Man Born Blind" is a short story written by C. S. Lewis. I actually had a lot of trouble figuring out when it was published. I'm gonna just say 1977 since it was bundled along with "The Dark Tower," which I recently reviewed, but it is possible that it may have been published sometime before then.

The title of this story is very self-describing. It is about a man who was born blind, although he has been given his sight back. Throughout his blind period, he was always told about light, and he was very curious about it. Once he could finally see, he still could not really understand the concept of light. The author does a decent job at explaining why this is. It is a psychology issue.

Basically, it has less to do with him not understanding what light is and more to do with people doing a terrible job explaining it to him. Light gives him the ability to see things, but he sees the things and not the light itself. He just wants to see light, not just reflections of light. I know it sounds silly... and to be fair... it kind of is.

The story wraps up with him running into a painter who tries to explain what light is, since he has to sort of create the concept of light on a painting he is making of some sort of cliffside. This sadly convinces the man to jump in to his death in his final search for light. Yeah, he dies.

I'll be honest... I thought this story had some really interesting concepts about how formerly blind men might perceive the world, but I did not really like it all that much. The ending just felt shocking but in a silly way. I don't really recommend it.

This blog was written on February 12, 2025.

Thank you for reading my blog! Did you enjoy it? Either way, you can comment below, or you can email me at tkwadeauthor@gmail.com. Also stop by my Amazon.com listing by clicking this link: https://www.amazon.com/T.K.-Wade/e/B07BQK9RTZ

Check out my books! Thanks!