A Man Who Had No Eyes

The third-person omniscient narrator withholds many important pieces of information to create suspense. From Paragraphs 11 to 27, the author does not provide Mr. Parsons’s affective responses to Markwardt’s story. Using your understanding of the story and the characters, rewrite this section to include Mr. Parsons’s thought processes, body language, and nonverbal emotional responses to Markwardt’s dialogue. Take care to not alter any the dialogue in the story. Has the sense of suspense altered? Why or why not?

Markwardt lays the blame for his downfall on the factory owners who did not provide him with insurance. If he had been insured, would Markwardt’s life or character be any different? Would he have become as successful as Mr. Parsons? Justify your answer using evidence from the text related to Markwardt’s characterization.

Although Mr. Parsons and Markwardt were both laborers, their speech is quite different. Using textual support, compare their speech patterns and discuss how their respective manner of speaking is relevant to the story.