The Man Who Walked on the Moon

The narrator’s failing eyesight symbolizes the ways in which he willfully embraces a certain kind of detachment from the surrounding world. It is especially notable that the narrator’s blindness mostly manifests itself as an inability to see other people’s faces. The narrator’s inability (or refusal) to see faces demonstrates the possibly selective nature of his vision impairment—it’s arguable, in fact, that his trouble seeing faces has more to do with his desire for social isolation than with any kind of physical disability. As he wills himself into failed eyesight, he changes the nature of his connection with other people. The narrator turns a literal blind eye to both his family and his job, and then he uses his failing eyesight and the subsequent isolation to justify his neglect. He feels detached with his new, limited eyesight, and he revels in this form of disconnection. By the time Scranton dies, the narrator finds him “barely visible,” perhaps because he has gotten so far from reality that he cannot even see the face of the person whose example he has followed. Similarly, even the city streets appear totally empty in his selective perception. In turn, the narrator’s blindness in “The Man Who Walked on the Moon” represents not just his desire for isolation but also the transformative power (for better or for worse) of embracing such a desire.