From Prophecy to Precarity: Sightlessness and the Politics of Cecity in Western Cultural Imagination

Abstract

Western cultural traditions have persistently represented sightlessness not as an embodied form of special ability but as a symbolic condition burdened with metaphysical, moral, and emotional excess. From ancient mythology and classical tragedy to early Christian thought, medieval allegory, modern drama, and cinema, sightless figures are repeatedly framed as prophets, moral transgressors, divine instruments, or objects of vulnerability. Such representations deny Cecity its legitimacy as a perceptual orientation and instead transform sightlessness into a narrative device that reinforces visual normativity. Drawing upon cultural criticism and critical studies of embodiment, this paper traces a chronological genealogy of sightlessness in Western myths, literature, drama, popular culture, and film. By analysing concrete characters across historical periods, the study demonstrates how Western cultural imagination consistently privileges metaphor over materiality, thereby marginalising special ability. The paper ultimately argues for a critical re-reading of Western representational traditions in order to reclaim sightlessness as Cecity—an embodied, agentive, and socially situated mode of perception rather than a condition of lack or tragedy.