Generosity Theme Analysis

At the heart of Michael Lewis’s book The Blind Side is a question: why would two rich parents, Sean Tuohy and Leigh Anne Tuohy, with two biological children of their own, adopt an impoverished inner-city teenager, Michael Oher, and lavish love and attention on him? Throughout the book, characters propose various cynical answers to this question: they suggest that the Tuohys are exploiting Michael for his football talents, or that they’re motivated by white guilt or pure condescension. Nevertheless, Lewis argues that sometimes things just are how they appear to be: the Tuohys treat Michael Oher generously because they’re extraordinarily generous people.

By examining the Tuohys’ relationship with their adopted child, Michael Oher, The Blind Side makes a series of interesting points about generosity, in effect, asking, “What is generosity?” From the beginning, the book suggests that people are generous to others because they recognize their common background. Sean Tuohy, a wealthy businessman and the basketball coach at Briarcrest Christian Academy, notices Michael Oher shortly after he enrolls, on scholarship, at the school; shortly afterwards, he arranges to pay for Michael’s lunches. Sean feels a need to help Michael out and give him encouragement and support, not just because he’s a nice guy but because Sean also came from an impoverished household and worked hard for his success, and had help from other people: he sees it as his duty to help out others in the position he was once in. The Blind Side further suggests that people are generous because they feel a more abstract, universal duty to help people in need—a duty that’s often rooted in religious conviction. Leigh Anne Tuohy—the woman who, probably more than anyone else, gives Michael Oher the love and support he needs to succeed—is a pious Christian; indeed, she says more than once that God has given her family money “to see how [we’re] going to handle it.” But even if extraordinary generosity is sometimes the product of a Christian background or of certain life experiences, it may also be an innate gift, which some people have and some people don’t. The well-to-do Memphis community in which The Blind Side is set is full of wealthy, Christian families, surely some of them headed by self-made millionaires, but only the Tuohys choose to help Michael Oher. Furthermore, the Tuohys choose to help Michael, rather than any number of other impoverished, lonely teenagers. In all, then, The Blind Side suggests that generosity is a mysterious, ineffable quality. Certain people feel a deep need to help certain other people, and sometimes they can’t explain why, exactly, they feel this need.

The Tuohys not only adopt Michael Oher; they also help him gain a first-rate football scholarship at their alma mater, University of Mississippi, give him endless love and support, and generally treat him like one of their own children. However, many people have criticized and questioned the Tuohys’ near-miraculous generosity. Some would argue that the Tuohys’ generosity is really just self-interest. In the final third of the book, for instance, the NCAA mounts a full-scale investigation of the Tuohys’ relationship with Michael, questioning whether they only adopted Michael to ensure that he would play football for their beloved alma mater, and whether they accepted bribes to pressure Michael to choose Mississippi. Furthermore, some readers of The Blind Side have interpreted the Tuohys’ treatment of Michael as condescending. They’ve argued that Sean and Leigh Anne chose to adopt a black, inner-city kid to assuage their sense of guilt with their own wealth and privilege, or that they treated Michael like a docile pet rather than respecting him as a mature, independent human being. Critics of the film version of The Blind Side took this argument even further, seeing the film as symptomatic of a “white savior complex” in Hollywood.

There is no explicit evidence in Michael Lewis’s book, however, to suggest that the Tuohys are motivated by anything other than benign generosity and a strong sense of duty to the unfortunate. Furthermore, the book shows how the Tuohys give Michael the tools he needs to become emotionally and financially independent, and live a mature adult life. As the book ends, the Tuohys are in the process of donating money to a foundation for inner-city teenagers, suggesting that they’re interested in helping others, not boosting their college. Ultimately, the Tuohys exhibit extraordinary generosity toward Michael, helping him become a talented NFL athlete and a confident young man.