Now I should precede to the characterisation of the main characters of the story. They are the blind man (his name is not mentioned) who is a protagonist of the story and the society he lives in (his sister and brother-in-law, other peasants) which is an antagonist.
The author uses both direct and indirect characterisation in his story.
The writer reveals the blind man by means of narrative description with both implied and explicit judgement. From both fact and judgement we derive the impression of the blind man as a man weak both physically and morally. "He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. ... Dependent on a sister of his, everybody in the farmhouse treated him as a beggar who is eating the bread of strangers. ... He was called a drone, a clown..." The author describes the man's appearence that is very suggestive: "His face was very pale and his two big white eyes looked like wafers. He remained unmoved at all the insults hurled at him, so reserved that one could not tell whether he felt them or not". The man's life is described in two sentences: " As soon as he finished his soup he went and sat outside the door in summer and in winter beside the fireside, and did not stir again all the evening. He made no gesture, no movement; only his eyelids, quivering from some nervous affection, fell down sometimes over his white, sightless orbs". The above mentioned comment of the narrator clearly indicate his sympathy towards the blind man. He suffers together with the man and feels sympathy for him.
The antagonist of the story, the society, is mostly described through its treatment of the blind man. We see that the narrator disapproves of the peasants, he calls them "brutes" because of which "useless persons [the blind man] are considerate a nuisance, and the peasants would be glad to kill the infirm of their species, as poultry do". Their dislike for the blind man developed into hatred having come through several stages: they played "cruel practical jokes", "placed before his plate ... some cat or dog" who ate from his plate, "they made him chew corks, bits of wood, leaves or even filth", they struck and cuffed him, at last they forced him to beg. When the blind man didn't come home they didn't bother to look for him and surely felt relief when found him dead. Such actions towards the blind man talk for themselves and describe the peasants even better than any direct characteristics could do.
The author uses both direct and indirect characterisation in his story.
The writer reveals the blind man by means of narrative description with both implied and explicit judgement. From both fact and judgement we derive the impression of the blind man as a man weak both physically and morally. "He was a peasant, the son of a Norman farmer. ... Dependent on a sister of his, everybody in the farmhouse treated him as a beggar who is eating the bread of strangers. ... He was called a drone, a clown..." The author describes the man's appearence that is very suggestive: "His face was very pale and his two big white eyes looked like wafers. He remained unmoved at all the insults hurled at him, so reserved that one could not tell whether he felt them or not". The man's life is described in two sentences: " As soon as he finished his soup he went and sat outside the door in summer and in winter beside the fireside, and did not stir again all the evening. He made no gesture, no movement; only his eyelids, quivering from some nervous affection, fell down sometimes over his white, sightless orbs". The above mentioned comment of the narrator clearly indicate his sympathy towards the blind man. He suffers together with the man and feels sympathy for him.
The antagonist of the story, the society, is mostly described through its treatment of the blind man. We see that the narrator disapproves of the peasants, he calls them "brutes" because of which "useless persons [the blind man] are considerate a nuisance, and the peasants would be glad to kill the infirm of their species, as poultry do". Their dislike for the blind man developed into hatred having come through several stages: they played "cruel practical jokes", "placed before his plate ... some cat or dog" who ate from his plate, "they made him chew corks, bits of wood, leaves or even filth", they struck and cuffed him, at last they forced him to beg. When the blind man didn't come home they didn't bother to look for him and surely felt relief when found him dead. Such actions towards the blind man talk for themselves and describe the peasants even better than any direct characteristics could do.
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