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October 03, 2005
Seeing Essay
“I couldn’t unpeach the peaches.” Humans are doomed to make meaning of what we see and once we make meaning it cannot be erased. It is irreversible. After reading the accounts of blind people gaining sight, Annie Dillard forces herself to see as they do, in color patches and flat shapes. However, she is deluding herself because she knows the meanings of the color patches and shapes. She knows through experience those color patches are not just patches existing without a role or an explanation. By trying to see in color patches Dillard is denying the existence of her knowledge. Knowledge of an object through sight cannot be erased thus the color patches Dillard sees will always be peaches. Dillard laments the loss of ability to see objects without meaning. “…that evenings he saw the angel who rolls away the light before the darkness, and mornings the angel who rolls away the darkness before the light...Later on you don’t see these things anymore.” Why do sunrises and sunsets have to be restricted by their names and meanings and not merely appreciated for their beauty? Dillard wishes to “unravel the world from reason.” Perhaps she misses her childhood and the innocence and simplicity of a child’s life. After all, she did begin Seeing with a memory of when she was six or seven years old and many of her experiences with seeing in nature connote the sense of regaining wonder for the beauty of nature. Seeing is not a voluntary action. I cannot choose whether I want to understand what I am seeing or whether on that particular day or moment I would rather not know I am looking at my cell phone or a pen or pencil. ‘Oh, I’m sorry; I don’t really feel like seeing today. Try again another time, please.’ This is a statement I have never considered saying to another person. It is an incredibly bazaar and unfathomable concept to consider turning the ability to see on or off. I use the term seeing, which is a physical action, but I am implying understanding, a mental action, must be accompanied by it. The two go hand in hand because, as humans, both Dillard and I seek understanding. It does not suffice to leave the world as color patches without meaning.
-just to note, it is supposed to be broken up into paragraphs but the site won't let me do it
Posted by lcisfreya at October 3, 2005 04:45 PM
Comments
Freya--I completely agree with everything you said in your essay. It was very well done. I was extremely interested in one specific comment you made in the reading about turning your ability to see on and off. That is an intriguing concept. We always are in the "seeing mode" and can never turn this "seeing mode" off, except for when we sleep. I never though of seeing in this way. Also, your last sentence was powerful: "It does not suffice to leave the world as color patches without meaning." This is true. We do identify everything (that is, colors, pictures, images) with a certain word or a certain concept maybe. If there were just these specific things, without a meaning, what would they represent? Very interesting.
Posted by: Christina at October 3, 2005 07:08 PM
Freya,
It was obvious - to me certainly - that you have a very good grasp of the Dillard piece. And you substantiated your points by refering to different parts of the essay which I thought was very good.
The paragraph thing may have worked against you because I didn't feel a smooth transition in and out of your main thought / idea in other words a definite "worked" intro and conclusion.
I enjoyed how you tied "seeing" and "understanding" together. And thought this went back to our class discussions on language. The fact that we humans always seek to make and give meaning is another thing that makes us different to all other species.
~ Nanette Savides
Posted by: Nanette Savides at October 4, 2005 12:28 PM