Social Atittude towards Blindness

Historically, blind and visually impaired people have either been treated as if their lack of sight were an outward manifestation of some internal lack of reason, or as if they possessed extrasensory abilities. Stories such as The Cricket on the Hearth by Charles Dickens provided yet another view of blindness, wherein those affected by it were ignorant of their surroundings and easily deceived.

The authors of modern educational materials (see: blindness and education for further reading on that subject), as well as those treating blindness in literature, have worked to paint a truer picture of blind people as three-dimensional individuals with a range of abilities, talents, and even character flaws. Certain individuals are gifted, and others licentious, but nothing definitive can be said of the blind as a class but that they cannot see well.