A Man Who Had No Eyes

"A Man Who Had No Eyes" is a short story written by MacKinlay Kantor.

Plot summary

This story tells the events of a chance encounter between two men on the street. One is a respectable gentleman ("Parsons"), and the other is a homeless man ("Markwardt"). They talk for a while, and Markwardt tries to gain the sympathy of the richer Parsons.

He details the events of how he became blind when the machine shop he worked in was swept up in a chemical fire. He tells the rich man how another larger man pulled him down and climbed over his body to escape the fumes. He is hoping Parsons will give him another half dollar when, surprisingly, Parsons informs Markwardt that his story is wrong.

Parsons then tells Markwardt of how he was also in the machine shop and how Markwardt climbed over him and escaped. Needless to say, Markwardt is shocked by this news and flies into a rage. He tries to gain the sympathy of the people walking by on the street by shouting at Parsons about how he is blind, and how Parsons escaped. Parsons then looks at Markwardt and delivers the prophetic line: "Don't make such a row about it, Markwardt, so am I."

The moral MacKinlay exhibits in this story is to not tell a lie for others might know the real truth. This story is a favorite of English teachers who enjoy making their classes search for the story's fairly obvious theme. Another theme of this story was how a man could gain insight with out having eyesight. The story has been printed in numerous short story collections and in magazines since it was written, and it is praised for its ironic ending.