All the Light We Still See
How Do Characters Who Are Blind Experience (Urban) Space?
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“And I realize that no matter where I am, whether in a little room full of thought, or in this endless universe of stars and mountains, it’s all in my mind.”
– Jack Kerouac
Master Thesis Literary Studies: English Literature
University of Amsterdam
Rojtah van der Hulst
Student number: 10025138
Supervisor: dr. S.T. Smith
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Table of contents
Abstract ... 3
1. Introduction ... 4
2. Theory on “space”... 7
3. All the Light We Cannot See ... 8
3.1 The experience of space ... 8
3.2 Urban space and urban imagination ... 15
4. She Is Not Invisible ... 24
4.1 The experience of space ... 24
4.2 Urban space ... 29
5. Blindsided ... 33
5.1 The experience of space ... 33
5.2 Urban space ... 37 6. Home ... 40 7. Conclusion ... 47 7.1 Recommendations ... 50 8. Works cited ... 51 8.1 Further reading ... 52
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Abstract
This research examines, from a literary point of view, what factors are involved in the
experience of (urban) space when one can no longer rely on vision. Through the analysis of
three blind characters, the image they have of the city and space in general takes shape.
Additionally, the current study connects this unique way of experiencing space to the theory
of creating a mental image of the city as defined by author and urban planner, Kevin Lynch.
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1. Introduction
This research attempts to offer insight in the experience of (urban) space when visual abilities
can no longer be taken into account. The blind main character, Marie-Laure LeBlanc (also
referred to as Marie), in Anthony Doerr’s novel All the Light We Cannot See (2014) functions
as the primary source for information on navigating through inside and outside space without
any eyesight. Since Marie-Laure also moves around in her neighborhood in Paris, her
experience of urban space is another focal point in this thesis. To eventually enable more
justifiable and general conclusions, two other blind characters – Laureth Peak from She Is
Not Invisible (2013) and Natalie O’Reilly from Blindsided (2010) – are included in the
analysis as well. Also, the significance of home space for all characters constitutes an
additional part in the scope of this research. Furthermore, the current research endeavors to
demonstrate a major link between the experience of space of these disabled characters and
theory on the mental perceptual form of urban environments as established by author and
urban planner Kevin Lynch.
Since Lynch has written an extensive oeuvre on city planning, a selection within his
work was necessary. For the current study, his most well-known work: The Image of the City
(1960) will be used alongside one of his other books: Good City Form (1981), and a selection
of his writings and projects joined in the edited book: City Sense and City Design: Writings
and Projects of Kevin Lynch (1990) combined, form the three main sources. In these works,
Lynch theorizes about the visual qualities of cities extensively, and they were therefore
considered most relevant for this research.
In The Image of the City, Lynch focuses on the visual qualities of the American city “by studying the mental image of that city which is held by its citizens” (2). Yet what if these
citizens are blind? How is this mental image then constituted? These are two of the crucial
5 visual quality: “the apparent clarity or “legibility” of the cityscape”, by which he means “the
ease with which its parts can be recognized and can be organized into a coherent pattern”
(2-3). This thesis uses Lynch’s distinctions of the creation of a mental city pattern in relation to
the characters from the novels, and seeks to pinpoint what structural factors are involved in
their imaging of the city.
Additionally, a further justification of the three fictional works that were selected is
required. All the Light We Cannot See was chosen as a primary source because, in his story,
Anthony Doerr offers a delicate and extremely detailed account of the adjustment to
becoming blind, and a unique image of regaining independence, namely by incorporating a
miniature model of parts of the city as a tool for recognition. As a character, Marie-Laure is
positive and curious, and the mental images she conceives are described extensively. Also,
the novel took Doerr ten years to write, many time of which he spent doing research1 on becoming and being blind. One of the sources Doerr gathered information from, was the work of Oliver Sacks, a famous neurologist, therefore some of Sacks’ findings will also be
used in this research. Moreover, Marcus Sedgwick’s novel She Is Not Invisible was a good fit,
since the main character is a blind teenage girl like Marie-Laure (even though Laureth was
born blind), and she travels to a large city independently. Lastly, Blindsided is an appropriate
additional source as the main character is a teenage girl who goes through the process of
turning blind, a process during which she moves from the countryside to an urban
environment. Together, the three novels present an accurate and well-researched2
representation of the experience of (urban) space when the visual aspect is omitted entirely.
Furthermore, within the concept of space, a distinction between familiar and
1 All the Light We Cannot See is about much more than Marie-Laure’s storyline alone, and Doerr shares more
about the research he conducted in multiple interviews ( e.g. with The Guardian, Tweeds Magazine, and Scribner Magazine).
2 Before writing Blindsided, Priscilla Cummings spent a year at a school for blind students, as is stated on the
first page of the book. Sedgwick also visited a boarding school for the blind and visually impaired for almost a year, as he states in an interview (yabibliophile.com).
6 unfamiliar space will be made. Seemingly, all characters function differently in familiar space
compared to outside or urban space. This research aims to identify the factors that play a role
in this, and to define other overlapping themes from the novels related to the experience of
space. Also, the importance of home marks a further distinction in familiar space. In the final
part of this thesis a definition of home for the characters is given alongside other associations
with home as detected from the books.
It should be stressed that Lynch’s theory in many ways focuses on defining and
locating pattern within the city in a rather abstract sense. However the aim of this research is to extend Lynch’s notion of the city “observer” by including a group that is not yet part of his
definition, namely the blind, seen from a literary perspective. This aside, Lynch mentions the
function of the observer in relation to the city in the following quote:
We are not simply observers of this spectacle, but are
ourselves a part of it, on the stage with the other participants. Most often, our perception of the city is not sustained, but rather partial, fragmentary, mixed with other concerns. Nearly every sense is in operation, and the image is the composite of them all. (Lynch, 2)
The current study intends to show the relevance of especially the last line for the creation of the characters’ mental images. In order to interpret their experience of urban space, the
characters’ overall experience of space and the properties involved in this process, such as
their other senses, compose another vital part in the analysis.
In short, this thesis examines in what ways, and to what extent, the experience of
(urban) space of fictional blind characters takes shape, and tests the value of this process
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2. Theory on “space”
Since “space” is a term that can be interpreted in many ways, the definition as used in the
current study will shortly be provided here. The Oxford English Dictionary defines space as “the dimensions of height, width, and depth within which all things exist”, a definition that
aptly identifies the intuitive sense of space as the universal container of things (Ryan, 1). As
this research is also concerned with narrative space, this type of space is regarded as “the physical existing environment in which characters live and move” (Buccholz & Jahn, 2005).
Within narrative space, another layer can be established, namely the space as experienced by
the characters in the novels. Therefore, this research focuses more on the literal concept of
space – how the characters move around in a particular space – rather than space in a more
metaphorical sense. However the definition remains slippery, as Ryan states in The Living
Handbook of Narratology: “Many of the spatial concepts developed in literary and cognitive
theory3 are metaphorical because they fail to account for physical existence” (3). To avoid confusion, the use of the term “space” can either be traced back to the OED definition, or is
connected to Lynch’s definition of urban space. If in any instances space is characterized
differently, the theory concerned will be explained and/or cited.
3
For additional reading on the theory of space the “Further reading” section at the bottom of the “Works Cited” pages can be consulted.
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3. All the Light We Cannot See
In order to interpret Marie-Laure’s experience of urban space, a broader image of her
conception of space in general is needed. Therefore one of the initial questions this thesis
attempts to answer in relation to All the Light We Cannot See (2014) is: “how does the main
character, Marie-Laure, experience space?” The girl becomes blind at the age of six which
means her experience of the world around her changes immensely. Initially, the process of
adjusting to being fully blind is dominated by a fear of the unknown but through practice and
gained knowledge, this begins to change slowly. Lynch stresses the importance of recognizing the patterns in our surroundings, since these shape the “generalized mental
picture of the exterior physical world that is held by an individual” (4). The following
examines how Marie-Laure implements structure in her mental world, and the multiple stages
she goes through before being able to recognize certain patterns.
3.1 The experience of space
Marie-Laure is diagnosed with congenital cataracts that are irreparable, which entails
that the lenses of both her eyes are clouded resulting in a complete loss of eyesight. She describes how spaces she once knew as familiar “have become labyrinths bristling with
hazards”: “Drawers are never where they should be. The toilet is an abyss. A glass of water is
too near, too far; her fingers too big, always too big” (Doerr, 27). Places she could carelessly
move around in before have become part of the unknown. In fact, everything Marie-Laure is
surrounded by becomes part of the unknown.
Despite this initial sense of endless fear, both Marie-Laure and her father Daniel LeBlanc do not give up hope of achieving a form of independence because the girl is “too
young” and her father is “too patient” (28). A similar parental attitude can be recognized in
the story of Daniel Kish (aka Batman), a blind man who is known for developing an
9 world more independently by learning to listen to the echoes that bounce off objects and
spaces in the same way a bat does. In his TED-talk, Daniel explains how his parents’ attitude
towards his blindness helped him to think in possibilities instead of limitations. Furthermore he says about his parents: “They knew that blindness would pose a significant challenge. I
was not raised with fear. They put my freedom first before all else, because that is what love does” (02.00, ted.com). Similarly, Marie-Laure’s father – who’s name incidentally is also
Daniel – helps his daughter gain more confidence in her abilities and assists her in developing
these abilities further. Besides being a locksmith, Daniel LeBlanc is also an expert in creating
models and puzzles out of wood. He builds a scale model of the neighborhood he and
Marie-Laure live in to allow his daughter to familiarize herself with the direct space around her in a
safe way, namely by touching every detail of the miniature. Also, Daniel quizzes
Marie-Laure and he keeps his daughter busy by “continually placing some unexpected thing into her hands” (29). In the meantime, Marie-Laure begins to adjust to the new manners she has to use
to move around, and she comes to the realization that “to really touch something . . . - is to
love it” (30). Her endless curiosity begins to shine through and her hands are the vehicles she
uses to keep learning new things: “Her hands move ceaselessly, gathering, probing, testing”
(30). It becomes clear that, within the secured environment her father creates for her, Marie is
confident enough to learn the qualities of the spaces around her.
However, the finished wooden model at first does not make a lot of sense to
Marie-Laure, especially when she compares the model to the real world. When describing an
intersection from her Parisian neighborhood, it becomes clear that Marie-Laure experiences
outdoor space very vividly:
The miniature intersection of rue de Mirbel and rue Monge, for example, just a block from their apartment, is nothing like the real intersection. The real one presents an amphitheater of noise and fragrance: in the fall it smells of traffic and castor oil, bread from the bakery, camphor from Avent’s pharmacy, delphiniums
10 and sweet peas and roses from the flower stand. On winter days it
swims with the odor of roasting chestnuts; on summer evenings it becomes slow and drowsy, full of sleepy conversations and the scraping of heavy iron chairs. (Doerr, 35)
The multitude of smells and sounds of the real-life intersection provide Marie-Laure with
information about what season it is, what shops are present and the overall atmosphere. Her father’s model is incapable of providing the same information, the intersection in there
“smells only of dried glue and sawdust. Its streets are empty, its pavements static; to her
fingers, it serves as little more than a tiny and insufficient facsimile” (35). Marie-Laure does
not yet realize that remembering details of the model will eventually help her to navigate the
streets outside, yet her father does, and he therefore insists she uses her fingers to scan the
model again and again. Through the wooden model, Daniel provides Marie-Laure with the
means to familiarize herself with the outside world, and its structure, without physically being in it. Therefore the model can be seen as Marie’s security blanket before venturing into
the real world independently.
Eventually, Daniel confronts Marie-Laure with a test when they are walking outside.
He spins her around at random and asks his daughter to guide them home. However Marie-Laure has no idea where she is, so she panics: “Exasperation. She cannot even say if the
gardens are ahead or behind” (36). Now, the sounds around her do not tell her where she is,
but they scare her because she is not able to identify them correctly. The unfamiliar space
leads to fear and Marie-Laure is unable to find the way back to her house. In his book, Lynch
mentions a case where subjects were asked to move through a maze blindfolded which,
initially, formed “one unbroken problem” for them (11). Yet through repetition, or by “training the observer” in Lynch’s terms, the subjects became more familiar with the maze,
and they began to recognize parts of a pattern (11). Similarly for Marie-Laure, after many
failed attempts and frustrating detours – and two years after she turns blind – she begins to
11 around, no longer does dread come “trundling up from her gut” (40). Her father tells
Marie-Laure to “use logic” (36) and she begins to do so by using and trusting her senses. Daniel
“Batman” Kish uses a comparable technique through his echolocation as he says: “I do not
use my eyes, I use my brain” (04.46, ted.com). Marie-Laure is more calm during her father’s
tests and she begins to enter a process of recognition that Doerr describes in the novel as
following:
The faintly metallic smell of the falling snow surrounds her.
Calm yourself. Listen. Cars splash along streets, and snowmelt
drums through runnels; she can hear snowflakes tick and patter through the trees. She can smell the cedars in the Jardin des Plantes a quarter mile away. Here the Metro hurtles beneath the sidewalk; that’s the Quai Saint-Bernard. Here the sky opens up, and she hears the clacking of branches: that’s the narrow stripe of gardens behind the Gallery of Paleontology. This, she realizes, must be the corner of the quay and rue Cuvier. (Doerr, 35)
From this it becomes evident what process Marie-Laure’s body and mind go through before
she is capable of identifying the space she is in. In order to recognize anything at all, she first
has to calm herself. When panic no longer overwhelms her, Marie-Laure is guided by her
remaining, and heightened senses. As neurologist Oliver Sacks says about one of the cases he researched that: “He seemed to regard this loss of visual imagery as a prerequisite for the full
development, the heightening, of his other senses” (1-2). Marie-Laure listens for familiar
sounds that will help her pinpoint her location within the city, in this case the sound of the
metro forms part of the solution. By using a structured mental process of identification
through smelling, touching, and hearing, Marie-Laure is no longer overwhelmed by and
scared of the space around her, but she experiences it as a puzzle she has to – and is able to –
solve. Marie-Laure only gains this ability through a remarkable amount of repetition which
eventually seems to construct within her mind a sense of habit. The girl’s growing abilities to move around individually contribute to Marie’s freedom. A similar effect is reached for one
12 echolocation technique, he teaches Ethan something more profound namely, independence
(BBC radio, Batman and Ethan).
Consequently, the secured living space becomes more familiar to Marie-Laure, and
she has no trouble navigating through the apartment she lives in, the museum her father
works in, and the neighborhood they stroll around in together. Lynch claims that, through repeated experience, “the entire pattern of perception is changed” (12), which can be noticed
in Marie-Laure since she now recognizes the spaces she knows well mostly by its smells and
sounds. For example in the National Museum of Natural History, where her father works,
Marie-Laure describes a multitude of the things she smells and hears: “Inside are the familiar
smells: typewriter ribbons, waxed floors, rock dust. There are the familiar echoes of their footfalls crossing the Grand Gallery” (28). She even begins to recognize what smells
characterize the different departments within the museum: “Botany smells like glue and
blotter paper and pressed flowers. Paleontology smells like rock dust, bone dust. Biology smells like formalin and old fruit” (44). The examples demonstrate how vividly Marie-Laure
experiences the places she visits, and how much knowledge she acquires from them. Her
curiosity is endless and, within a familiar space, she is eager to learn new things. Part of why
the girl feels at ease in certain places, and why they become familiar to her, is routine. Her
father works at the museum six days a week, and Marie-Laure always joins him. The way she
is dressed by her father, the way they eat breakfast, and the way they walk to the museum together, are always the same. Almost every day “at six forty she collects her white cane from
the corner, loops a finger through the back of her father’s belt, and follows him down four
flights and up six blocks to the museum” (28). Knowing that the route and amount of steps to
take will be the same every time Marie-Laure wakes up provide her with an overall sense of
security.
13 It is 1940, the beginning of World War II, and Marie-Laure and her father are forced to flee
Paris. Taken out of her comfort zone, Marie-Laure’s insecurity returns. This uncertainty reflects on Marie’s senses that feel “scrambled” (76) now that she walks streets beyond the
boundaries of the model her father created. She questions everything she hears: “Is that the
rumble of airplanes? Is that the smell of smoke? Is someone speaking German?” (76). Not
only is the general uncertainty of the situation overwhelming for Marie-Laure, the fact that
she no longer recognizes anything in the space around her makes her even more frightened. After a tiring journey, father and daughter end up at the house of Marie’s uncle, Etienne, who
lives in Saint-Malo together with his housekeeper Madame Manec. Living in an unfamiliar,
large house under circumstances with new restrictions arising every day is tough for
Marie-Laure. She reminisces about her life in Paris and says:
“Didn’t she presume she would live with her father
in Paris for the rest of her life? . . . That her father would always hum as he fashioned little buildings in the evenings, and she would always know how many paces from the front door to the bakery (forty) and how many more to the brasserie (thirty-two), and there would always be sugar to spoon into her coffee when she woke? . . . Now? What will happen now?” (Doerr, 72)
The above indicates that a rupture in Marie’s routine has taken place, and that she finds it
difficult to cope with both the unnerving situation at large, as well as the lack of knowledge
she now has of the city and house she lives in.
As it is too dangerous to go outside to the sea, Marie is confined to the six floor house
and she spends her time learning all about its structure, textures, sounds, and smells. The first
floor belongs to the housekeeper, Madame Manec, a clean and navigable space, the second and third floor are filled with clutter and smell of “faded grandeur” (146), the fourth floor
contains even more stuff, and Marie’s antisocial and secluded uncle Etienne occupies the
entire fifth floor. Marie-Laure and her father sleep on the sixth floor in what was her
14 The space of the house Marie can investigate on her own, but in the meantime her father is
also making another wooden model of Saint-Malo. Marie wants nothing more than to leave the house: “Still they do not return to Paris. Still she does not go outside. Marie-Laure counts
every day she has been shut up in Etienne’s house. One hundred and twenty” (166). Even
though Marie was scared at first, also in the house itself, now that she has become familiar
with her surroundings she is ready for more, and her curiosity always wins from her fear.
Even though Marie-Laure usually feels uncertain in unknown spaces, the book
exhibits her final feeling of freedom when she eventually is allowed to visit the ocean. She
has heard and smelled the ocean ever since she arrived in Saint-Malo, but she has never
visited it – or any other sea – in her life. Finally, after Marie’s father is captured by the
Germans and she becomes more depressed each day, Madame Manec decides to ignore the
risks and take Marie-Laure for a walk along the beach. Marie’s taste of freedom is portrayed
in the following passage where her senses are stimulated in every way:
Now there are cold round pebbles beneath her feet. Now crackling weeds. Now something smoother: wet, unwrinkled sand. She bends and spreads her fingers. It’s like cold silk. Cold, sumptuous silk onto which the sea has laid offerings: pebbles, shells, barnacles. (Doerr, 232)
After such a long time of confinement, Marie’s curiosity is fed again. Out on the beach her
“privation and fear are rinsed away by wind and color and light” (243) and a “months-old
knot inside Marie-Laure begins to loosen” (232). Ever since her father left, the space of Etienne’s house felt different to her, and she even began growing scared of it like she was
when she first arrived there. Now that she has left the boundaries of the model her father has
created, Marie begins to realize that she can rely on her own abilities in exploring a new type
of space. Even though the space may contain dangers and uncertainties, she does not
necessarily have to link this to fear. The girl realizes that her experience of the space outside
15 descriptions: “But what surrounds the model is not something her father conveyed to her;
what’s beyond the model is the most compelling thing” (232).
Marie learns how to cope with her disability through her father’s methods and her
own motivation in a secure and routine-driven environment which allows for her fear to
lessen. Additionally, a large part of Marie-Laure’s “generalized mental picture of the exterior physical world” (Lynch, 4) consists of patterns which she discovers through the wooden
model and a lot of repetition. In a less abstract way, Marie-Laure’s experience of familiar
space becomes filled with joy and wonder about the multitude of textures, smells and sounds
she can detect. In fact, Marie’s experience of space is driven mostly by curiosity and her
constant need to explore. Even though she partly fears the unknown, especially when her
secure environment is dislocated completely, she eventually finds that she is able to go
beyond the boundaries of her father’s models and feel liberated by the unfamiliar outside
world, especially by the sea. It can be deduced from the above that fear and curiosity, as well as independence and freedom, form vital aspects of the main character’s unique experience of
space in the novel.
3.2 Urban space and urban imagination
This part of the thesis examines another aspect of space in All the Light, namely the representation of urban space. Primary focus lies on Kevin Lynch’s theory on metropolitan
form, in which he provides a visual proposal of what elements a city should contain. For a large part, Lynch’s key facets of metropolitan form can be recognized in the Parisian
neighborhood Doerr describes in the novel. Additionally, the concept of urban imagination is
included in this analysis in order to examine Marie-Laure’s mental image of city space. It
will be argued that Marie-Laure’s experience of the city also includes all the crucial elements of a “perceptible [metropolitan] form” (66) as mentioned in Lynch’s theory. Lastly, this part
16 multiple other layers within her imagination of the city.
In the book City Sense and City Design: Writings and Projects of Kevin Lynch (1990),
Lynch explores an array of qualities that, according to him, could theoretically create a metropolitan form. He discusses “The Visual Shape of the Shapeless Metropolis” and one of
his initial questions is concerned with whether it is possible to establish a certain pattern
within city form in the first place. He explains:
The metropolitan region is capable of being imagined in various ways, according to the desires or capabilities of the particular observer (as a system of paths, as well as a constellation of linked focal points, for example). We will arbitrarily say here that there must be at least different general ways to organize the region. Ideally, one of these should enable an observer to image the area as a static map, and another as a system of sequences. (Lynch, 67)
In this quote, Lynch mentions the “capabilities of the particular observer” in relation to,
ideally, seeing the city as a static map. In Marie-Laure’s case, who cannot be an observer in
the literal sense, it is actually her disability that allows – or rather forces – her to see the city
as exactly that, a static map. Her imagination of the city is based on a static, artificial model
of it, and in the following quote she explains how she puts this mental process into practice: “Sixteen paces to the water fountain, sixteen back. Forty-two to the stairwell, forty-two back.
Marie-Laure draws maps in her head, unreels a hundred yards of imaginary twine, and then turns and reels it back in” (Doerr, 44). This indicates that, even though Marie-Laure cannot
see the city, she attributes it structural qualities and imagines it as an intricate map filled with
landmarks inside her head. By utilizing these landmarks as points of recognition, they assist
Marie-Laure in navigating and determining her position within the city. As her days are
concentrated around a routine, including the same daily walk through her neighborhood, the
city becomes a system that Marie is able to decipher through logic and knowledge of its
structure instead of its visual characteristics.
17 concept of organization. In the previous quote he says that “there must be at least different general ways to organize the region” (67), and he divides what he thinks are crucial elements
into three categories:
1. The major path system, the streets, rail lines, canals, promenades, airways. These are
perhaps the most crucial elements of all.
2. The major centers, focal points or nodes: the peaks of density, special activity, or access,
such as shopping centers and major terminals.
3. Special districts: areas of appreciable size associated with memorable activities, character, or associations. Also “special historical areas” (Lynch, 69).
In the novel, many of these elements can be found in the descriptions of Paris – be it from Marie’s perspective or in a more general way. Doerr describes a city filled with rain gutters,
sidewalks, metro lines, streets, the banks of the river Seine, traffic lights, etc. Adding to the
organization of the city, and Marie-Laure’s identification of its structure, storm drains, trees,
pipes, railings, ropes, hedges, benches, lampposts and doorways form essential points of recognition. All of these examples could be fitted in the first category of Lynch’s distinction.
Additionally, the National Museum of Natural History, where Daniel LeBlanc works, is a building that seems to fit within a combination of category two and three. It is both a “special
historical area”, for obvious reasons, but in the story the museum can also be seen as a “major
center”. In general, the museum functions as a place for special activities such as guided tours
and special exhibitions, as well as drawing a large audience. For Marie personally, the
museum is a special place where she spends memorable time almost every day, especially
with Dr. Geffard, a professor at the museum, who shares much of his knowledge with Marie, making the museum a “special district” within the city.
Examining the city further from Marie-Laure’s perspective, it becomes clear that many of the city aspects mentioned above enter Marie’s imagination of the urban as specific
18 sounds, textures or fragrances. As she cannot rely on vision, her navigation through the
neighborhood is guided by the heightened senses Marie has left. As mentioned earlier, the
girl gains the ability to navigate more independently through a lengthy process of repetition
with her father. So Marie does not only use the knowledge of the wooden model and the
maps she draws in her head (44), her urban imagination is much more lively. Using the
example of Marie-Laure’s successful city navigation again, some of the solutions Marie finds
are in fact specific aspects of city form:
The faintly metallic smell of the falling snow surrounds her. Calm yourself. Listen. Cars splash along streets, and snowmelt drums through runnels; she can hear snowflakes tick and patter through the trees. She can smell the cedars in the Jardin des Plantes a quarter mile away. Here the Metro hurtles beneath the sidewalk; that’s the Quai Saint-Bernard. (Doerr, 35)
Firstly, she hears “cars splash along streets”, a clear indication that she is somewhere in the
city centre. Also, she can smell the trees of the Jardin des Plantes, a well-known botanical
garden within the city that is part of the National Museum of Natural History. Lastly, the
hurtling Metro beneath the sidewalk is the final clue in this example of Marie’s process of recognition in metropolitan space. Marie uses these “tools” – sound, fragrance and texture –
to complete her mental image of the city. Most of what she recognizes whilst walking
through the streets of Paris are objects and places unique to the city, which means that these
factors together become part of Marie-Laure’s extraordinary form of urban imagination.
Furthermore, Marie-Laure’s imagination of the city contains another unexpected layer.
Whereas one might assume that the girl lives in complete darkness, she imagines color in
multiple ways. In his theory, Oliver Sacks also discusses a case of a woman who, despite her blindness, “sees” in “all the colors of the rainbow”, and the woman herself describes that “In
a few months [her] personal world had turned into a painter’s studio." (Sacks, 7). Thus Marie
19 The girl says that “In her imagination, in her dreams, everything has color” (44). Some
examples given in the novel are “museum buildings” being “beige, chestnut, hazel” and
“church bells [sending] arcs of bronze careening off the windows” (44). Animals, trees,
people, and even sounds gain colorful traits in Marie-Laure’s imagination. This way of attributing color to objects seems to form the fourth layer in Marie’s imagination of the urban
which completes the image of the city in her mind.
Despite Marie-Laure’s improved navigation skills, there is still a factor that plays a larger role because of Marie’s disability: danger. Even though the girl can hear cars driving
along, she cannot see when the traffic light turns green and she is unable to prepare for
unexpected movements – especially in traffic situations. Perhaps because of this, Marie is
presented in the novel as cautious, because even when she guides her father home
successfully she does not forget to ask whether or not it is safe to cross the street (40). The
system of the city only exists in her head and all the girl can do is have trust in her knowledge
of the city, and in the information she can read from a particular moment. A similar situation
was described in the BBC radio show about Batman and Ethan, the blind boy who learned to
use the echolocation technique. As he applied the technique outside he often got too
distracted by noises surrounding him, which resulted in him almost crossing the street whilst a car was approaching. So despite both Marie’s and Ethan’s knowledge and techniques to
navigate the streets outside, there remain limitations to the experience of a city when the
visual aspect is eliminated completely.
Additionally, Lynch explains how there is a need for creating city pattern as a
necessity for the person in the street to enjoy his experience:
I prefer, however, to argue from the need to make the environment conceivable to the “man in the street”, as a
prerequisite for intelligent and enjoyable behavior in the street. This requirement may not entirely coincide with the features that make the environment orderly when drawn as a map.
20 Or, more correctly, we will probably have to revise our technique
of recording city pattern, so that a perceptible diagrammatic form coincides with a perceptible form in actual experience. (Lynch, 66)
Lynch implies that the “man in the street” might not experience the city as orderly or
structured. In this argument, use of the word “perceptible” implies an emphasis on the visual
in relation to experiencing the streets of a city. The claim goes as far as saying that the conceivability of the city to the “man in the street” is a necessity to enable “intelligent and
enjoyable behavior”. Yet for Marie-Laure, her disability does not seem to eliminate the
possibility of walking through the city intelligently and, eventually, with joy. Also, Lynch’s
suggestion that this enjoyable aspect does not go hand in hand with the city’s structural
pattern fully, seems to apply differently in Marie-Laure’s situation. In order for her to walk
through the city and not feel terrified, Marie-Laure has to learn its exact structure, therefore her “technique of recording city pattern” is very static. On the other hand, Marie-Laure’s city
experience is enhanced by lots of sounds and smells which, in combination with her color
association, make walking through her neighborhood more enjoyable and lively. It could be said that the static model forms the “perceptible diagrammatic form”, and her explorations
through the real city coincide with being the “perceptible form in actual experience”.
In relation to the above, Lynch also expresses the importance of urban imagination for
the individual:
There could be orientation experts (there are), systematic means of random search, etc. However fantastic, they serve to remind us that other devices are possible, and are to some extent used in visually unfavorable circumstances. They make the observer dependent on the well functioning of an outside system, and deprive him of the pleasure and security of constructing his own mental image. We will pursue them no further. (Lynch, 76)
21 Lynch explains that a city’s “visible organization”(76) is not necessarily of greater
importance than a form of “unseen organization”(76), since an exaggerated form of
organization can take away from the individual’s possibility to form a personal mental image
of the environment. Even though Marie-Laure’s image of Paris relies heavily on organization,
the importance of her imagination is stressed constantly in the novel. For example the unlimited possibilities that imagination offer to Marie: “Ten years old, and onto the black
screen of her imagination she can project anything: a sailing yacht, a sword battle, a Colosseum seething with color” (51). Of course in Marie-Laure’s case, both the structural
and the imaginary are part of mental images, yet in the novel Doerr’s approach to city
organization (from Marie’s perspective) seems to align with Lynch’s theory. Similar to how
Lynch emphasizes the significance of city organization without forgetting the individual’s
imagination, Doerr injects a large amount of structure in Marie’s image of the city but, at the
same time, he never underestimates the relevance of the girl’s infinite imagination. Even though almost all of the city’s traits are described from Marie-Laure’s
perspective, a broader representation of the city in All the Light We Cannot See should be
taken into consideration. Especially the fact that Marie-Laure gains her initial information
from a miniature model deserves further analysis. Anthony Doerr expresses in an interview about the novel that he “loves miniatures” and that playing with scale fascinates him (Pande,
tweedsmag.org). In relation to this, Gaston Bachelard in his work The Poetics of Space, offers
his view on the use of miniature in literature. Even though Bachelard focuses primarily on
examples of fantasy and absurdity, part of his conclusion seems to apply well to the miniature in the novel: “Thus the miniscule, a narrow gate, opens up an entire world. The details of a
thing can be the sign of a new world which, like all worlds, contains the attributes of
greatness. Miniature is one of the refuges of greatness” (Bachelard, 155). For Marie-Laure, the miniscule model of her neighborhood is her gateway into the real world. The model’s
22 immensely detailed representation offers her possibilities and knowledge she otherwise could
never obtain, and indeed “opens up an entire world”. Also, Marie uses the model as a place of
refuge before she is able to maneuver in the real city, and she discovers in the miniature some
new detail every day – “each storm drain, park bench, and hydrant in the model has its
counterpart in the real world” (40). From this place of refuge she eventually finds the means
to achieve her sense of greatness: more independence.
In conclusion, it can be deduced from the above that Lynch’s theory on city form
applies in many ways the same when the visual aspects no longer count. Many of the vital properties Lynch describes as being part of recognizing a city pattern can be found in Marie’s
imaging of Paris. The fact that Marie-Laure largely thinks of the city in a structured manner, as a static map even, runs parallel to Lynch’s theory. Also, many of the landmarks Marie uses
as points of recognition fit into Lynch’s categories of vital city aspects. Besides the girl’s
organized city image, conceived mostly through her knowledge of the wooden model, her other senses liven the representation of the city in Marie’s mind. Her abilities to detect certain
smells, textures, sounds and even colors all attribute to what can be called Marie-Laure’s
urban imagination. However the inability to rely on vision also poses limitations in Marie’s urban space, the biggest of which is danger. Another facet from Lynch’s theory that finds
resonance in the novel is the nuance he adds to the overall view of an organized city, where
Lynch expresses that over-organization might kill a person’s ability to create a personal
mental image of the city. Similarly, Doerr emphasizes the need for structure in Marie-Laure’s
city image without losing sight of the human factor of individual imagination. Furthermore, by using Bachelard’s theory on the miniature, an analysis of the wooden miniature in the
story was provided. It can be argued that the model opens up a new world of possibilities for
Marie-Laure, because her knowledge of the model gives her more freedom in the real world.
23 visual proposal of city pattern (as described by Kevin Lynch) does. It could be said that
Marie-Laure’s imaging of the city creates a unique type of urban imagination. Whereas
Lynch seems to primarily answer the question of what a city visually contains, All the Light
We Cannot See offers another dimension by answering what a city might sound, smell, and
24
4. She Is Not Invisible
In order to interpret Marie-Laure’s experience of space more accurately, her case will be
aligned with two other visually-impaired main characters – Laureth Peak from She Is Not
Invisible and Natalie O’Reilly from Blindsided. This chapter analyzes both of these
characters in a smaller, yet comparable manner as has already been done for Marie-Laure,
which will eventually enable more justifiable conclusions about space and its link to visually
impaired fictional characters, and Lynch’s theory in general.
4.1 The Experience of Space
Firstly, in Marcus Sedgwick’s novel She Is Not Invisible (2013) one reads about
Laureth, a British teenager – who has been blind since birth – who travels from London to
New York City together with her seven-year-old brother, hoping to find their father who has
gone missing. This adventure takes a blind girl and her little brother from an airport to a taxi,
to a hotel and numerous other places, all within a large city that is completely unknown to them both. Not only does Sedgwick grant the reader insight in Laureth’s methods to navigate
the city, he provides an image of the experience of space when one lacks a visual memory completely, and he shares the girl’s personal view on being blind.
In the quest for her father, Laureth needs her brother Benjamin as her guide and in
many ways he fills in the visual information that she cannot decipher – one might say he
functions as her eyes. For example, Laureth uses a computer program that reads the content
of emails to her, yet when she receives an email with embedded images she asks Benjamin to describe them to her (Sedgwick, 16). Additionally, Laureth and Benjamin have a “secret
way” (9) of walking:
We slowed to walk, and that way we could do the thing that he likes to do and that I like him to do too, where it looks as though I’m guiding him, but actually he’s guiding me. A little tug this way, a twist that way. We have it down to a fine art, so
25 good in fact that if I have my sunglasses on, people often have no
idea about me. (Sedgwick, 38)
So where Marie-Laure is assisted by her father and the wooden model, Laureth has also
developed a certain technique that helps her navigate, and often times even hides the fact that
she is blind.
Before Laureth’s adventure in New York begins, it becomes apparent that
independence and freedom are important factors in the novel. Laureth’s self-reliance is
stimulated by her mother, who, instead of answering her daughter’s question, says: “Why
don’t you look it up? Google it? You need to be more independent” (15). Furthermore, the
girl’s mother is skeptical when Laureth thinks there might be something wrong with her
father: “No, that’s enough. You’re too much like your father sometimes. Head full of fairy
dust. You need to be more responsible, you need to grow up and look after yourself. Be sensible. You’re sixteen” (17). It seems that Laureth’s mother does not treat her daughter any
differently because of her disability, and she often leaves Benjamin in Laureth’s care when
she has to work (12). Laureth also describes when she does experience a feeling of complete freedom, namely when she is skiing: “I love skiing even more than I like flying. The speed
was wonderful, the cold air on my face, but best of all I liked the freedom of being out on the
slope, with no one holding my hand, no tables to jump out at you, no kerbs to trip over, just the instructor behind me, shouting ‘turn!’, ‘turn!’, ‘turn!’” (43). This quote shows that
Laureth often feels restricted by the space she moves around in, since there are obstacles
everywhere and she often needs a form of guidance. Despite this, she decides to travel to
NYC with her little brother – an unfamiliar place with all kinds of obstacles and risks – which
in itself shows that Laureth feels independent enough to take on such a journey.
However, this does not mean that Laureth is not scared. In fact, quite a similar fear of
the unknown as could be detected in Marie-Laure’s character, seems present within Laureth. As the search for Laureth’s father starts, she has to get to the airport and on the right plane
26 without drawing too much attention to herself. She starts to doubt whether she can pull it off,
because she has to move around in such an overwhelming and unfamiliar space, where there is no one else she knows: “There was no way I could do it. I hated to admit it, but it was true.
It was one thing to get around by myself at school. That’s different. I know where everything
is. I know everyone. They know me. But it’s not the real world” (19). After arriving in New
York, Laureth attempts to hide her fear from her brother, but she admits to herself not only that she is scared in this big, unfamiliar city, but a lot of the time: “Because yes, I was. I am
scared, almost all the time. But I never tell anyone. I can’t afford to. I have to go on
pretending I’m this confident person, because if I don’t, if I’m quiet, I become invisible”
(106). It seems that Laureth’s fear of unfamiliar space is related to her overall fear of being
seen as that “poor blind girl”, who is stereotypically shy and fragile, and often ignored or
pitied by society. Instead, Laureth (over)compensates this image, by pretending she is
confident, and not blind. Laureth uses this pretend confidence in other instances too:
I used to hate stairs, but they’re one of those things you have to tackle in life, like kettles. I was scared
of them for a long time too; nasty hissing, boiling monsters. In the end, you just have to say; I’m going to beat that thing. It will submit to me. And in that way, you get there, you win. You have to pretend you’re not scared, even when you are. (Sedgwick, 96)
This is exactly the tactic Laureth uses in unfamiliar space too, she is scared in NYC (“That fear had begun to crawl into me was undeniable”, 82), but she does not express it to the outer
world (“I knew I was fighting against it, trying to stop it taking hold”,82).
Furthermore, Laureth relies on certain patterns of repetition to gain more knowledge
of an unfamiliar space, and her mother being very organized injects an amount of routine into the girl’s life at home. Laureth explains how organization makes life easier for her: “Our
passports were where Mum always leaves them. As I said, she’s very organized, something that makes my life much easier. When Dad’s around it gets harder, because the TV remote is
27 never where you left it, or the telephone handsets, or, in fact, anything” (22). Not only
organization, but repetition too helps Laureth to move around more independently. For example when she is in the hotel room in NYC: “I thought about the layout of the bedroom,
where I was. The door was on the far side of the bed from me, where I stood by the safe. The
window had blinds just like the sitting room” (147). She has spent some time in the hotel
room before and, through repetition, she has become more familiar with the space of the room, which allows her to create a map in her head of the room’s lay-out. However when she
is in the hotel room for the first time, she has to rely on her senses when someone knocks the door: “‘Coming!’ I said, and though I’d not really been there for long enough to memorise it
fully, I managed to get from the bedroom through the other room and to the door by following the sound of the knocking” (93).
As for Laureth’s senses, Sedgwick provides an image slightly in contrast to Doerr’s.
As neurologist Oliver Sacks explains, studies in those born blind, show that “with the
reallocation of the visual cortex to touch and other senses, these can take on a hyperacuity that perhaps no sighted person can imagine” (Sacks, 2). Laureth’s opinion on heightened
senses in blind people deviates from this view, yet her belief is in some ways contradictory to
how she uses her senses in practice. The girl starts off by saying that the general idea of people is that “if you went blind, your other four senses might become super-powered” and
that, for her, “that’s not how it is”(55). However, Laureth says she does “pay more attention
to the senses [she does] have”(55) and that the concept of having only five senses in total
(sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell) are wrong. She says there are others, “like the sense of
balance. The sense of temperature. The sense of the passage of time. The sense of the relative positions of your body parts to each other; that’s why you can touch your nose in the
dark”(55). Yet Laureth concludes that all of these senses are very useful, but that “when
28 Even though Laureth has no visual memory, and therefore (for example) does not
know what color is in the same way Marie-Laure does , it can still be argued that Laureth’s
senses assist her in many ways. Not only does smell remind Laureth of certain people, like
the smell of a wool coat makes her think of her father (29), in the end, the smell of smoke is an important clue: “I smelled the smell of smoke. Stale smoke, rancid and old, like an ashtray
breathing all over me, and I knew we’d been followed” (135). Since Laureth had already
noticed this particular smell of smoke before, she recognizes it immediately and gains vital
information from it. In a less literal way, Laureth also clearly senses motion and human
presence. For example when she sits next to her father in the car, she says: “I could feel him next to me”, or when she hears him approaching: “I hear footsteps outside and I know it’s
him” (29). Another instance of this awareness occurs when Laureth and Benjamin are in a
taxi, and Laureth does not want her brother to touch the TV screen in front of him:
‘Don’t touch it,’ I warned him.
‘I’m not going to!’ he said, but something about
the way he said it told me his hand was halfway towards it. He slumped back into the seat next to me. (Sedgwick, 102)
Also, Laureth can detect emotion from a touch, for example from the way her brother holds her hand: “ . . . but I could feel Benjamin starting to get upset, just from the way he held my
hand, just from the way he was pulling” (103). In addition, she does not use echolocation, but still has a sense of the space around her: “I could tell we were standing in a very small room,
an entrance hall or something, because the sound was close and flat” (102). From these
examples combined it becomes apparent that Laureth senses certain movements, attributes
sounds to individuals, and has excellent knowledge of what a particular tone of voice or
manner of touch might indicate. Even though Laureth feels that her senses do not help her “see”, it can be said that they enhance her experience of the people, objects, and spaces
29
4.2 Urban space
Since Laureth and Benjamin travel to a large city, her movement within this urban
environment whilst being blind can be analyzed further. From a statement Laureth makes, the
difference between her and Marie-Laure’s structured mind becomes apparent: “I’ve been jumping about all over the place, but maybe that’s because that’s how my mind works,
whereas Dad thinks in straight lines, connecting the dots, from here, to here, to there. Done”
(40). Even though Laureth does not imagine the city as a “static map” (Lynch, 67) inside her
head, there is one large passage in the novel that explains Laureth’s understanding of New
York City, since a boy named Michael, who Laureth befriended, asks her about her
experience of the city:
‘But what must your world be like?’ he asked. ‘What do you make of this city, how do you
understand it?’ The taxi driver honked his horn, but I ignored him. I stepped over to Michael, and put my hands over his eyes.
‘Like this,’ I said. ‘Just listen. What do you hear?’ ‘The traffic,’ he said.
‘Yes. There’s the traffic, but you can hear sounds in it, can’t you? There’s that big truck rumbling down there, and someone’s impatient with someone over there, a little honk on the horn. And there’s a loose manhole right near us. And there’s more sirens in the distance, though the one for our man has stopped now. And there’s the helicopter overhead, and a plane even higher than that. There’s a guy
selling bottles of water for a dollar down the street, and someone’s just walked by with a dog, a small dog. And I haven’t even started on the smells yet.’(Sedgwick, 142)
From this quote it can be deduced that Laureth relies first and foremost on sound. Whereas Michael describes the noise around them simply as “the traffic”, Laureth hears many
distinctions within the combination of sounds, both on different heights as well as in a large
radius around her. Consecutively, Laureth mentions the smells that also help her make
distinctions in the city, an example can be found in a different passage where she says: I
30 our feet (75).
Even though Laureth’s urban imagination is perhaps less structured, the structure of
New York City itself assists her in her movement through urban space. In his theory, Lynch explains how it is a “rare experience” for most people to become completely lost in the
modern city, since “we are supported by the presence of others and by special way-finding
devices: maps, street numbers, route signs, bus placards” (4). However most of these devices
are eliminated for Laureth because of her disability – she cannot read maps, street numbers
etc. – which creates an additional difficulty of orientation for the girl. Laureth learns more about the structure of New York when a man tells her that “numbers are everything in this
town” (111), because numbers help everyone get around: “Like to tell someone where to
meet, you say the numbers; like the corner of 85th and 3rd” (111). Despite the fact that Laureth cannot see these numbers herself, they help her in forming an image of the structure of New
York, and eventually the street numbers are a vital clue for locating her father. Not only is her
father interested in finding patterns, he is also obsessed with a particular number, 354, which
Laureth can find within the structure of the city –be it with help from Benjamin and a taxi
driver. Though Laureth does not imagine New York as a (static) map, and needs assistance in recognizing “way-finding devices”, structure indeed remains a key factor for her movement
through urban space.
In addition, the major centers, focal points, and special districts (Lynch, 69) that were
mentioned with regard to Marie-Laure’s urban imagination are also essential for Laureth’s
concept of the city. Since Laureth is sixteen and goes to school, it can be expected that she
has a degree of knowledge of such a well-known city as NYC. Laureth’s insight in the city’s landmarks are triggered by Benjamin’s descriptions whilst looking out of the taxi window:
Then Benjamin said, ‘Wow,’ and had obviously seen something, and I didn’t have to explain any further. ‘What is it?’ I asked.
31 ‘We’re crossing a huge river. On a big bridge. A big, big bridge.
And there are lots of skyscrapers. It’s just like in Godzilla.’
‘Oh,’ I said, ‘that must be Manhattan. We’ll be at the hotel soon.’ (Sedgwick, 83)
From her brother’s description, Laureth extracts quite specific information about their
location in the city and she even has a sense of the distance between her current location and
her destination. Besides Benjamin’s visual input, Laureth uses logic to deduce her position as well: “Our taxi, which had been stopping and starting with the rest of the traffic, suddenly
sped up, and kept going. We must have reached a different part of town” (101). It seems that the structure engrained in New York, and Laureth’s prior knowledge of some of its key
districts and focal points, together form a “constellation of linked focal points”(Lynch, 67)
which injects a sense of organization in the unfamiliar space she is confronted with. After the analysis of Laureth’s character in She Is Not Invisible it can be concluded
that, despite a number of inherent differences, some of the key facets acknowledged in Marie-Laure’s experience of (urban) space can also be detected in Laureth. The constant switch
between fear and the want of independent movement can be recognized in both of the girls,
and the initial difficulty of navigating through an unfamiliar space versus the ease and safety
of moving within familiar space is another correspondence. Also, the fact that much of Laureth’s knowledge of space becomes embedded through routine and repetition resembles
Marie-Laure’s methods. Laureth’s absence of visual memory, her lack of color association,
and her disbelief in heightened senses are in contrast with Doerr’s main character.
Additionally, Laureth’s imagination of (urban) space is not based on a map-like structure, and
she relies more on the visual descriptions of other people. Yet her image of the city still
contains focal points, and is influenced by both her prior knowledge of the city space and the information she gathers by using her other senses. Finally, in the description of Laureth’s
32 than the character without any visual limitations expects, which is a concept that runs through
33
5. Blindsided
The third visually impaired character that will be analyzed is Natalie O’Reilly from the book
Blindsided written by Priscilla Cummings. In this story, Natalie has glaucoma – which means
that she still has limited eyesight – yet she receives the diagnosis that she will lose her vision completely in the near future. As Sacks mentions: “To become blind, especially later in life,
presents one with a huge, potentially overwhelming challenge: to find a new way of living, of ordering one’s world, when the old way has been destroyed”(1). In Blindsided, Natalie’s
journey towards accepting her diagnosis, and her resistance to attending a school for visually
impaired and blind children are major themes. Whilst the teachers at the special school try to
prepare Natalie for turning blind by learning her how to use a cane and how to read Braille, Natalie still tries to hold onto the little eyesight she has left. The analysis of Natalie’s
character focuses mostly on the time after she turns blind, in order to see how she uses her
other senses and to evaluate her independent movement through the American city of
Baltimore.
5.1 The experience of space
Firstly, Natalie also experiences fear, yet in her case this fear comes in two forms. She
is both afraid of losing her eyesight completely (“Please don’t take any more away. Please.”,
Cummings, 14) and what consequences this will have on her life, and she is scared in a more general way, which is a fear she wants to hide: “I’m scared, but I don’t want anyone to know,
not Mom and Dad, and not even Meredith, ‘cause I don’t want them to worry and look at me like I’m different” (14). Natalie’s denial of her insecurity parallels with her refusal to ask for
and/or accept help. She feels as if the techniques the teachers attempt to familiarize her with at school will take away her independence, instead of granting her more freedom: “But by far,
the cane was her greatest fear because of all it represented – and all that it would strip away –
34 PATHETIC BLIND PERSON” (33). From an earlier age, Natalie taught herself tricks in
order to be more independent in her movement through space. For example, she started counting: “Forty-two steps between Mr. Hewitt’s ancient history class and the doors to
downstairs . . . six steps to the water fountain . . . fourteen steps to the girl’s room” (15).
Eventually, a while after turning blind, Natalie realizes that the skills she was taught in school
are useful, and that she cannot “keep on living the way she had, pretending she didn’t need any help but knowing that she did” (78). Natalie’s want for independence is clear throughout
the novel, yet she becomes more aware of the fact that she cannot establish this on her own, and might need help in “find[ing] a new way of living” and of ordering her world after
turning blind (Sacks, 1).
Additionally, the moment Natalie loses her sight still comes as a shock to her and from now on she will only see a “solid sheet of – not foreboding blackness – but indecisive
gray” (107). Initially, Natalie struggles to gather information from her surroundings and she
finds it especially hard to interpret another person’s intentions in conversation: “Another
silent pause. Should she tell him she was blind? But maybe he was in a rush to go. Was he?
Or did he want to stay and talk? Was there a customer waiting? How was she ever going to know these things?” (120). Without the possibility of processing any visual information,
Natalie faces difficulties in multiple areas. In his book, Oliver Sacks answers the question of what happens when the visual cortex is no longer “limited, or constrained, by any visual
input”: “The simple answer is that, isolated from the outside, the visual cortex becomes
hypersensitive to internal stimuli of all sorts: its own autonomous activity; signals from other
brain areas—auditory, tactile, and verbal areas; and the thoughts and emotions of the blinded individual” (8). Now that Natalie’s visual cortex no longer processes visual input, her brain
35 After Natalie and one of her school friends are almost kidnapped, it is Natalie’s
detailed description of the event and the attacker that supply crucial clues for the police:
“He smelled like beer and cigarettes,” Natalie said. “I think he followed us from the bar in the shopping center. The Raven’s Nest.”
“You’re sure?” the officer asked. Natalie hesitated.
“No. I can’t be sure. Obviously. But I smelled him. Some guy said something to us when we passed the bar and it was the same voice. He had a fleece jacket on – and he’ll have a bite mark near his wrist. I also hit him pretty hard on the nose.” (Cummings, 152)
As this quote shows, the girl’s attentiveness to smell, sound, location, and even texture
signifies how she experiences and gathers information from the space around her. In a less
threatening situation, Natalie also learns to rely more on her hearing – the stomping of boots,
the unzipping of a coat, footsteps, a rustling sound (121) – and her sense of smell – of snow,
cold air etc. (121) – in order to give shape to the space around her. Natalie utilizes most of
her senses but, similar to Laureth, she no longer visualizes color. Before turning blind, in her snapshot memory, Natalie can “still see the bright yellow bonnet edged with white lace and a
pink sweater with green turtle buttons” (13) in one of her memories. However, during the
process of losing more of her sight, “Natalie’s world started to shrink, and fade”, which also means that “the color is gone from these memories” (14).
Furthermore, a difference between movement in familiar versus unfamiliar space is also recognizable in Natalie’s character. Natalie grows up in a small village in the mountains
where her father has a goat farm. This image is very much in contrast with the city of
Baltimore, where the school Natalie will attend is located. As Natalie starts to understand the
convenience of her cane , she expresses how she would never need to use it in the spaces she knows well: “She left, cutting through the living room quickly, and easily avoiding the coffee
table and the wing chair that jutted into her path. She knew the house like the back of her hand; she would never need a cane to find her way at home” (61). Within familiar space, she
36 is able to move freely and independently, she knows the location of furniture and she keeps
other objects, such as her tinted eyeglasses, in the same place always (61) which all
contributes to an uncomplicated navigation through space. This image of safety and order is in disagreement with Natalie’s experience of unfamiliar space. When one of Natalie’s
teachers, Miss Audra, explains that she can partake in a test, where she will have to walk
independently to a shopping center located a mile from school, using all of the techniques she has learned. Natalie’s fear of the unknown shines through in her reaction to Miss Audra’s
proposal: “But alone in Baltimore? Walking to a shopping center? What if she got lost? What
if someone was mean to her? What if someone tried to steal her pocketbook or make her get into a car? It seemed crazy and irresponsible for Miss Audra to even suggest it” (83). The
presence of risk and unpredictability in unfamiliar space result in Natalie being hesitant to
enter this type of space on her own.
Having said that, a large part of Natalie’s movement through space is based on
repetition and routine, similar to both Laureth and Marie-Laure. Whereas Natalie initially relies on her counting technique when she arrives at the school (“She had counted the steps
last night after the dorm meeting as a kind of backup so she could find her way without asking for help”, 23) she, after a lot of repetition, stops counting steps and focuses
“exclusively on cane technique and memorizing mental maps of the school” (99). The girl’s
methods are quite structured, which seems to partly be a consequence of the school’s regular
daily schedule. Natalie grows in her abilities and she says that “many of the major challenges of six weeks ago were now merely part of daily routine” (99). Thus, comparable to
Marie-Laure’s endless repetition of the wooden model and her father’s navigation tests outside, the
level of fear in Natalie’s experience of unfamiliar space decreases through repetition and a
