Interpretive Analysis of Oliver Sacks The Minds Eye - Essay Example

? Oliver Sack’s “The Minds’ Eye” God has gifted the human beings with 6 different senses which are interdependent on each other. All these senses complement each other and through these senses a human is able to see, listen, speak and able to perform other important tasks in this world. But what happens if any individual lacks any of the sense(s) or loses it, particularly the sense of eyesight or vision. When a person loses or does not have a sense of vision he / she will balance the loss of this sense through other senses. He will utilize other senses in a more productive way and has a better understanding of these senses than normal human beings. This essay aims to analyze and understand ‘The Mind’s Eye’ by Oliver Sacks. Moreover, the paper will also present a clear understanding through the different stories of blind people from the book regarding how blind people not only utilize their other senses in an enhanced way but also how they have managed to live a better life and compensate the losses. Dr. Sacks teaches neurology as a professor at the New York University, School of Medicine. His past collection of books is counted to be 10. All these books are case studies of his patients. The Mind’s Eye was published in 2010. In the Mind’s Eye, Sacks major emphasis is on the vision and the perception. Through the seven different case studies, Dr. Sacks has explains how our brain deals with the issue when someone gets blindness, either inborn or acquired. He explains how the brain works and how it makes sense of images that are present, working in a very multipurpose and plastic manner (Sacks 87). In the Mind’s Eye, Sacks has recalled work of various blind writers and authors who he has read or studied or dealt with. With the different case studies, he has described the feelings and experiences which each of the blind authors / writers have discussed in their writings or have shared with him as his patient. Moreover, Sacks has also interpreted that experience from his own perspective and suffering. Oliver Sacks has discussed author John Hull. He demonstrates how all those memories and images kept revolving around his mind and how he has regular attention of all those visions and memories in his mind after John lost his sense of vision. Sacks has emphasized on the role of the brain and how blind people from the case studies utilize other senses effectively. He learns how they adjust themselves with the help of their brains (Sacks). Oliver Sacks in Mind’s Eye has not only discussed the blind authors and writers. He has also talked about those who cannot read or speak, but still have continued and managed to live their lives. He said all these writers have adopted a new technique to survive in the world by using their brains in a multi tasking manner. From the seven chapters of the book, five chapters discuss the vision and blindness, while the one deals with the incapability to write and speak (Sacks). In almost all case studies, the people that he discussed (writers, professionals, and musicians etc.) were not initially blind. However, they lost their sense of vision in their adulthood. In the third chapter of Mind’s Eye, Sacks has discussed a man who is a writer and a reader. He gradually started to lose his sense of vision. However, reading and writing was his life and he had never envisioned the life without it. Therefore, he did not give up and continued writing and reading with his tongue with the help of his brain (Sacks). Therefore, the chapter had special association with Sack himself as he himself was also the victim of the stereo vision. However, all the people who Sacks has discussed in the case studies had managed to see, read and write in one way or another, with the help of their brains and the images stored in it (Sacks). With all the anecdotal evidence and his personal experience, Sacks was able to come up with an idea or a thought that the people who have lost their sense of vision or other senses experience some sort of hallucinations. These hallucinations are linked with the sense they have lost. For example, a blind person will get visual hallucinations; a deaf will experience music hallucinations etc. He further explains that these hallucinations are not exactly images or perfect portraits of what the person wants to see. These are mere geometrical images in which the person sees figures in the form of either incomplete digit, checkerboards or something else, which resembles numbers or figures but never are exactly the same (Sacks). In Mind’s Eye, Oliver has also argued that the brain function is ‘metamodal’, which means that a person can gather information from one sensory modality and can utilize it through another. This illustrates that the brain is the centre of all senses. If anyhow someone is unable to read, write, or see the brain draws a picture and helps him to envision what he wants to see and imagine. This can be explained by an example that a person touches a shape and can figure what shape it is and later can confirm and identify correctly after he sees it. Sacks wanted to say that the function of the brain is not fixed and it can perform different tasks and can also be multi tasking at times. A person can always utilize it to maintain or help other senses (Sacks). This is again linked with the term ‘Synesthesia’ discussed in the Mind’s Eye. The term ‘Synesthesia’ means the merging of the senses. In Synesthesia, a person experiences the blending of two or more senses. For example, he merges sense of vision and hearing. Sometimes, only the characteristics are merged in a sense of modality, which means that a person blends the color with written letter. In short, it occurs in a person who combines two (or more than two in few cases) senses of modalities. Sometimes, it is not just the sense but it is the merger of the perspectives or personality or gender (Sacks). This is how Sacks has related the title of the book ‘the Mind’s Eye’ to these two terms. A person, who lost his sense of vision or is unable to recognize faces or cannot read anymore, links his specific senses with brain so that they can merge and create a hallucination of what they are seeing or want to see. According to the understanding of what is presented in the book and its title, it can be stated that a person who lacks one sense (vision or other) sees the world through his brain (Mind’s Eye) or images and pictures stored in it, and relate things so that they can continue to live normally and can compensate easily for what they have lost (Sacks). In order to get the points clearly, Sacks has adopted a rhetorical strategy in the Mind’s Eye. He has explained the context of the book through different case studies in which he has shared the experience of six different people, including him. He has explained how they faced issues regarding their senses and how they have managed to live and compensate their loss with their brain. He has explained the neurology of the problems in the last chapter which is also the summary and has discussed how it has been a serious issue and a topic of concern for him and others. He has also explained his situation, his tumor and how it has left him with weird and strange visual hallucinations. With these case studies and his personal experience he has explained how people see in three dimensions and how humans perceive a world within themselves (i.e. in their mind) with their eyes shut (Sacks). In short, Sacks has amazingly and interestingly explained and discussed the loss of senses (vision and others) and how our brain accommodates the loss. He also presents how people compensate their loss carving new possibilities out of the limits which are imposed on them in their adulthood or later life. If one sense is lost, the person gains super-sensitivity in the other sense. For example, a blind person develops a sharp and super sensitivity for hearing, and a deaf person can catch the movement of lips and then understands what the person is saying by using his brain (Sacks). It is the brain which has the tendency to fit in every situation. Even in the adulthood, it can accommodate itself into any occurred reality. For blind people, Sacks concluded that some portion of the brain is not left wasted but relocates itself and is used for another purpose, so that the person can compensate the loss. Precisely, Sacks has wonderfully compiled the seven different chapters and the case studies of his patients and his own. He surely will never let us forget those lessons about senses, human mind, synesthesia and how the affected people have managed to continue their life and their professions in a successful way. Work Cited Sacks, Oliver. The Mind's Eye. Sydney: Pan Macmillan, 2011. Print. Read More