Novel Characters Typecast By Spectacles
So, who’s the most famous hero in popular literature right now to suffer from short-sightedness?
Well, we’d have to say that it’s probably Harry Potter.
His long-suffering specs (luckily he can wave his wand over them when they snap and quickly fix them) are a big part of who Harry is and what he looks like, along with his instantly recognisable lightning strike scar.
Harry Potter without his spectacles just wouldn’t be Harry Potter. He’d just be an ordinary boy hero, let alone a boy wizard with amazing powers.
Spectacles Keep The Story Moving
As a plot device for an author, making a character wear glasses gives them an endearing vulnerability, which can be exploited to make them more in danger of the villain, as they lose their specs at a crucial moment and are unable to see without them.
The scary witch in the fairytale Hansel & Gretel was shortsighted – but in my version of the fairy story at least, I don’t her remember correcting her vision with specs! It was lucky for the two children that she did have bad eyesight. Hansel manages to fool her into thinking that he is not growing any fatter in captivity by tricking her into believing that a chicken bone is his finger. And Gretel manages to sneak up behind her and push her into an oven without being noticed!
Cyclops The One Eyed Giant
In the classic Greek legend, Odysseus and his friend escape the cannibal Cyclops (who has just one eye) by blinding the only eye he has (ouch) and then pretending to be his sheep by covering themselves in fleeces. He counts the ‘sheep’ as they exit his cave, satisfying himself that his captives are still there. Once again, his bad eyesight saves the day for the escaping sailors.
In William Golding’s classic 20th Century Novel “The Lord of the Flies”, the downtrodden character Piggy wears his much needed glasses, which come in useful when the boys need to light a fire. As the story progresses, Piggy and his glasses come to represent the civilisation and intellect which the increasingly feral boys begin to reject. Although Piggy cannot see well without his glasses, his insight is excellent.
Spectacles To Hide Behind
Other characters in literature use glasses as a form of disguise, hiding behind the nerdiness glasses are sometimes thought to portray. A character in point is Clark Kent, who is never seen without his glasses in the newspaper office. Of course, he whips them off when he becomes his alter-ego Superman, but they serve to disguise his features when he is Clark Kent and an ordinary civilian.
