The Elephant in the village of the Blind is a famous Indian fable telling the experience of the six blind men who come across different parts of the Elephant . The blind men wanted to know how the Elephant looks like and, in the process, taken to the palace to touch the Elephant and get to know how it looks like (Johnson, 2014). In curiosity, the six blind men touch different parts of the Elephant having different textures. After the first experience of Elephant , each man described the Elephant depending on the part they touch, but the discussion of each man created conflict, thus creating normal interaction of ordinary human beings. The character of blind men in the story of the Elephant in the village of the blind behaves like the normal people because they are curious and wish to know what surrounds them.
The six blind men in the story represent the different aspects of human beings in society. The men were ignorant, representing the ignorance and the curiosity of human nature. In the story, the first clue that the author used to symbolize ignorance is the setting of the story. The location of the village was high up in the remote mountains showing the isolation and seclusion from the world (Seale, 2015). The behavior of the six characters of the blind men in the story corresponds with the normal life of other human beings, for example, people remain ignorant until they have access to information just like the blind men in the story. After having the first experience with the Elephant , the information that each man manage to collect from touching different parts of the Elephant caused a conflict when they wanted to describe how the Elephant looks like. Each man was correct in describing the Elephant depending on the texture of the part of the Elephant they touch, but to end the conflict, all the six men should merge all their ideas for them to realize the exact feeling or physical appearance of the Elephant .
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
The conflict that the men in the story portray also happens to the life of the normal human, and to solve this problem in the real world is to listen to the opinions of each individual and make a conclusion that captures the ideas of each individual. Another similarity between the character of the blind men in the story and that of the human in the real world is the tendency of an individual to project his or her partial or limited information as the whole truth and, in the process, ignore other people experiences (Saxe, 2016). The blind characters in the story also enjoy passion from other people in the community; for example, they can get movement support from the members of can see. The character of the six blind men in the story has a similar behavior with the normal people in real life.
Admittedly, the main characters of the blind men in the story behave just like the other normal human being in real life. The setting of the story shows the curiosity and ignorance that normal human beings can have in their day-to-day activities. The blind men in the story were ignorant until they got the opportunity to touch the different parts of the Elephant . The information that they acquired from touching the Elephant physically made things worse because each individual perceived the animal differently. The conflict also arises to the normal human being in real life because each individual believes that the information he/she has is correct and cannot consider the ideas or information of other individuals. Considering the ideas and information of each individual and combining them is the best way to handle conflict that arises from the difference.
References
Johnson, L. (2014). Feeling the Elephant : TS Eliot's Bolovian Epic. Journal of Modern Literature, 37(4), 109-129.
Saxe, J. G. (2016). The blind men and the elephant. Enrich Spot Limited.
Seale, T. (2015). Why teach poetry? English Journal, 104(4), 12.
