Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins
The intriguing tale by Wilkie Collin about Lucilla Finch, a blind girl, and the identical twins who both fall in love with her has the thrilling complexity of his more well-known novels, but it also defies expectations.
Collins chooses a blind person as his key subject and also examines the idea of blindness and its repercussions using a background of myth and fairytale to push the limits of nineteenth-century realist literature. His sensitive portrayal of the challenges, setbacks and sporadic joys that follow a person who has been blind since infancy regaining their sight is still one of the best fictional accounts of a situation that has intrigued philosophers, psychologists, and the general public ever since it was first raised.
Poor Miss Finch by Wilkie Collins
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One of my favourite Collins books is this one since it’s both heartwarming and humorous. It concerns Lucilla Finch, a woman who has been blind since she was a young child owing to cataracts. She has her sight restored through a radical medical procedure, only to lose it once more. There are many things about Victorian science that fascinate me, such as the contrast between the radical physiological realism of the German oculist Herr Grosse in the book and the speculative, abstract science represented by the English surgeon Mr. Sebright. However, there is also a tale about two identical twin brothers named Oscar and Nugent Dubourg, one of whom turns blue for the entire novel after taking epilepsy medication.
Jicks, a peculiar youngster who constantly refers to herself in the third person (“Here comes Jicks”), is another minor character. As this stunning, alluring woman with disability charms both the readers and the other characters, Miss Finch takes centre stage. She is not the only central figure in one of Collins’ novels who has a physical impairment. A woman who is deaf and mute appears in Hide and Seek, and Miserrimus Dexter, a character without legs, appears in The Law and the Lady.
