Introduction
The poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant” by John Godfrey Saxe depicts the actions of six blind men in their attempt at trying to discern what an elephant is like based on their perceptions. The result is a series of rather humorous descriptions wherein each man ascertains the entirety of the elephant based on touching its parts.
Favorite quotation and explanation
“Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!”
For me, this is my favorite quote out of the entire poem since it embodies all the actions of the blind men as well as shows that while each of them was right in their way they were all wrong at the same time. Taking in the poem in its entirety it can be seen that its main message is that of perception in that all too often people look at the bits and pieces of events, topics, and problems and fail to see the whole in its entirety.
This results in each person having their interpretation as to the causes of events and problems which creates even more confusion. For example, up till now, people are still arguing over the causes of various mental illnesses, historical events, and scientific phenomena with each school of thought having their ideas and sticking to those ideas despite the presence of other factors advocated by other schools of thought. It is based on this that the poem itself can be thought of as a metaphorical representation of humanity as a whole with all of us being blind and understanding only a part of the events, problems, and challenges that occur in our lives. Saxe alludes to my interpretation by stating the following quotation”
“So oft in theologic wars, The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean”. The term “theologic wars” is based on the various present-day theologic debates over religion that have been occurring for the past thousand years with each side expressing that their faith is the best while wholly ignoring the fact that the main purpose of religion was to help the masses and praise God rather than engage in a useless bantering, fighting, and oppression.
Reference List
Saxe, John. Blind Men and the Elephant. 1816 – 1887.