The Blind Men and the Elephant
Poetry has entertained and informed readers for centuries. “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” by John Godfrey Saxe (1816-1887) is one such poem. Read the poem (twice if necessary) to see if you can understand its point. Merriam-Webster Online or Dictionary. com may assist you in defining any unfamiliar words that the poem may use. Some of the words you may need to look up include theologic (theological, theology), disputants, ween, rail, and prate.
When you finish reading the poem, post a comment, together with your teammates, that responds to the following questions:
- What do you think is the point of the poem? Briefly explain.
- What connection can you make between the AP report that follows and the poem? Discuss.
To answer question #2, read the following AP report:
In the northern Iraq attack, armed men stopped the bus as it was carrying workers from a textile factory in Mosul to their hometown of Bashika, which has a mixed population of Christians and Yazidis – a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians.
The gunmen checked the passengers’ identification cards, then asked all Christians to get off the bus, police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga said. With the Yazidis still inside, the gunmen drove them to eastern Mosul, where they were lined up along a wall and shot to death, al-Wagga said.
After the killings, hundreds of angry chanting Yazidis took to the streets of Bashika in protest. Shops were shuttered and many Muslim residents closed themselves in their homes, fearing reprisal attacks. Police set up additional checkpoints across the city.
Bashika is about 80 percent Yazidi, 15 percent Christian and five percent Muslim.
Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a police spokesman for Ninevah province, said the executions were in response to the killing two weeks ago of a Yazidi woman who had recently converted to Islam after she fell in love with a Muslim and ran off with him. Her relatives had disapproved of the match and dragged her back to Bashika, where she was stoned to death, he said.
Here’s a step-by-step summary of what you must do for this assignment:
- Read “The Blind Men and the Elephant” (more than once if necessary).
- Look up the definitions of any unfamiliar words in the poem.
- Read the AP report quoted above.
- Discuss the point of the poem with your teammates and try to see a connection between the poem and the report.
- Together with your teammates, write two paragraphs, the first of which explaining the point of the poem, and the second discussing the connection between the poem and the AP report.
- All members of your group should then revise, edit, and proofread the paragraphs before submitting them as a comment to this post. Put the names of all members of your group in the name field and submit your paragraphs.
Not the Last Word 8 
May 25, 2007 at 9:37 am
One connection between “The Blind Men and the Elephant” and the AP report is about religion. The gunmen killed only the Yazidis because what they see as an angel, Christians and Muslims see as the devil. The different religions believe in different forms of god. Just like in “The Blind Men and the Elephant,” none of them have ever actually seen god and do not actually know what it is.
You seem to understand the poem and the connection between it and the AP report. A paragraph summarizing the point of the poem and then a second paragraph explaining the connection would have made for a better structure.
May 25, 2007 at 9:43 am
The point that the author is trying to make in the poem “Blindmen and the Elephant” is that there are people in the world who fight about religion. The author is trying to say that it is because of their ignorance that they are blinded. They fight for their religious beliefs even though none of them know for sure that they are right.
The connection between the two articles is that there are going to be wars over religion, and everybody is partly right but all wrong. So everybody should just believe what they want and let others think what they want. The world would be better place when everybody realizes that they are not always right.
Two solid paragraphs, though the connection drawn in the second seems somewhat vague. Be more explicit and use details from the report to support your statements. No MUGS errors.
May 25, 2007 at 9:46 am
The poem, “Blind Men and the Elephant” was very meaningful. In the poem the blind men fought even though they couldn’t see the elephant. Which is related to the moral of the poem, people fighting over religion without seeing what religion really is.
The “Blind Men and the Elephant” and the A.P. report are similar because people are too ignorant to accept other people religions. People are so passionate about their religion they do fight over it even though they never have seen God.
You understand the poem in the first paragraph, though your last sentence is a fragment. Your second paragraph makes a connection, but it’s vague. Be explicit and use details from the article.
May 25, 2007 at 9:48 am
The point of the poem is that the men never saw the elephant so they didn’t know what it was or how it looked. They all thought different things about the elephant. If you never saw god then how do you know who he is and how he looks? People have different beliefs in god.
The Poem and the AP are related because they are both talking about god and their beliefs. The girl in the AP report had different beliefs and fell in love with a guy from a different religion. Her relatives disapproved about her wanting to be with that guy. In the poem all the men thought the Elephant was a different thing.
On the whole, fairly good paragraphs. Your first paragraph explains the poem adequately, and your second does make a reasonable connection. A couple of MUGS errors.
May 25, 2007 at 9:48 am
The meaning of the poem “The Blind men and the Elephant” is that people fight about things they can’t even see. People all perceive all things differently such as religious figures. All people don’t have the same beliefs.
The comparison between the poem and the AP article is that the people in both argue about things they can’t see. They fight over different religions and gods, but have never seen them. This is like the blind men and the elephant.
Good first paragraph, but your second needs development and more thought. Your connection between the poem and the report seem weak and unclear.
May 25, 2007 at 11:08 am
Blind men and The Elephant
The point of the poem was that everyone has their own perspective on the same things. The last stanza was about how they all had their opinions about something that they had never actually seen before. They didn’t see or feel the whole thing, and they all think that they are right.
In the last stanza of the poem they talk about religion. There are a lot of wars going on about a god or a religion they have never seen or learned about. The elephant is like the religion or god they’ve never seen and they are always jumping to conclusions about something they are blind to.
Good first paragraph, but your second paragraph was to draw a connection between the poem and the AP report. Nowhere, however, do you make the connection. Did you read and understand instructions? A couple of MUGS errors.
May 25, 2007 at 11:11 am
They argue about the elephant that really resembles God even though they can’t see him. Everyone sees God in a different perspective. They are fighting for something they can’t see.
They think they are all doing something right. They believe killing each other will make God happy, but God wouldn’t want people killing each other. Religion is a big controversy in the world. Fighting over something you can’t see is not important.
Ok, but your first paragraph needs to be clearer. Use details from the poem to help explain. Your second paragraph is solid except for possibly the last sentence. A number of people believe that fighting over things we can’t see, whether God or abstractions like freedom, is worth the sacrifice.
May 25, 2007 at 11:13 am
The point of the poem is that everyone sees things differently. Nobody sees exactly what other people see. People can perceive everything that can be seen or touched differently. Certain people think of things differently.
The solders thought that their faith was the only faith to live by. They killed Christians because their religion was not the same as theirs. The soldiers see their religion as the only religion or faith to live by. The soldiers believe that their god is the only god and therefore anyone who believes in another god does not deserve to live. This paragraph is similar to the paragraph, “The blind men and the elephant”, because we should not fight over things that we cannot see.
Ok, you got the point of the poem but seemed to have misread the AP report. No Christians were killed in the incident reported. Still, your second paragraph does refer to the crux of the matter. Just express yourselves more clearly.
May 25, 2007 at 11:15 am
The point of the poem is that the six blind men in the poem are arguing about something they’ve never seen, namely an elephant. Later in the poem, God is the elephant because nobody has ever seen god but they make up things that they think he is. Their ignorance gets in the way of everything.
The connection between the AP report and the poem “six blind men and the Elephant”, is people have been killing themselves for centuries over something they have never seen and they don’t try to see someone else’s point of view.
Very strong first paragraph but a weaker second. Your second would be better if it were developed more. Explain the connection by using details from the report.
May 25, 2007 at 11:15 am
The poem is about six blind men talking about what they see and this is the same thing that happens when people interpret God in a different way. Everybody has a different religion and what they believe in and sometimes may lead to fighting, torture and death. Some people love their religion so much they die for it.
The connection is people disagree on everything even there own religion. The AP report is about people stopping a bus to kill people that aren’t there same religion. The Elephant poem is about some people going to the temple to experience God and they interpret things about him or her differently.
Good first paragraph, but your second needed more thought; it’s vague and unclear. Learn the difference between there and their.
May 25, 2007 at 11:18 am
Everybody perceives things differently and they have disputes about the way they think something is. They’re not just disagreeing about how they perceive things; they’re fighting about what they hadn’t seen. The people who were shot and killed shouldn’t have been because they had nothing to do with the family and their daughter.
People can believe and see what they want, but you shouldn’t persuade other people in what you believe or see. People shouldn’t fight about things they haven’t seen yet. We should have world Peace!
Generally, two solid paragraphs. Your first paragraph needs to talk about the poem more directly. Your second paragraph needs to make a more explicit connection between the poem and the report.
May 25, 2007 at 11:21 am
In the poem “Blindmen and the Elephant” the elephant is just like God. In the poem they are all arguing about what they think the elephant looks like. People today are fighting, arguing, and killing each other over their beliefs in God. Different religion groups each have their own perception of what God is really like and what kind of life he wants them to live.
The AP Report and the poem are similar. In both discussions they are fighting over what they believe but can’t see. In the AP Report they killed a woman because they basically didn’t believe that the life she was going to live and the religion she converted to was not right according to what they believe. Just like in the poem they are fighting about their belief in God.
Two very strong paragraphs! Good! “Religion groups” should be “religious groups” in your first paragraph. That’s the only MUGS error. Your writing is clear and concise.
May 25, 2007 at 11:22 am
The point of the poem was about how the blindmen can still descibed the characteristics of the elephant and compare them to other things. Another point of the poem is that
everyone see and think things differently than each other.
The same similarities between the poem and the story is that everyone thinks, believes in their own religion and believes in many different ways. The people who shot the other people on the bus were blind as well as the blindmen in the poem because they didn’t know the religion, and the blindmen didn’t know the real object.
Numerous MUGS errors. You must read what you write. Your paragraphs lack clarity. You all can do better.
May 25, 2007 at 12:13 pm
The poem “The Blind Men and the Elephant” talks about how all the blind men are assuming what the elephant is like. They really don’t know so they feel different parts of the elephant, and say what they think it feels like. All of the men start disputing about this elephant. This is sort of like people arguing about their religon and their god or gods. None of them have seen them but they always argue about who’s is better.
The report and the poem are similar because they both deal with arguments about opinions. In the poem”The Blind Men and the Elephant” the men dispute about what they think the elephant looks like even though none of them have ever seen the elephant. In the AP Report it talks about the Yazidis and the Muslims. The Yazidis girl converted to Muslim because she wanted to be with a Muslim man. But the Yazidis thought the Muslims weren’t right because they are of a different religon. So the Muslims went and killed a whole bus of Yazidis because they thought the Yazidis were bad people because they killed the girl just because she converted to Muslim. The two groups always dispute because they think that their god or idol is better. Even though they have never seen their god or whatever before they dispute about whose is better, just like the blind men.
Generally, two strong paragraphs! A few MUGS errors, but you do make a worthwhile connection between the poem and the report.
May 25, 2007 at 12:25 pm
The poem “Blind men and the elephant” was about 6 men that were all blind and they didn’t know what an elaphant was. So they all felt different part of the elephant and they each had there different opinion. They were arguing about that they thought the elephant felt like. And in the ap report talked about how they thought that there god or gods are different.
the poem “blind men and the elephant” and the ap report are similar to eachother because they both looking into something that isn’t the same and the men are thinking that the elephant is different from what it really is and in the ap report the girl thinks that her religion is different then everyone elses. And they both deal
with arguments, decisions and opinions.
Numerous MUGS errors. Read what you write. Also, your paragraphs lack clarity. Say what you mean, clearly and concisely.
May 28, 2007 at 9:03 pm
To all students:
My comments about your paragraphs are in italics at the end of your posts. To see what grade you received for this assignment, check WebGrader and look for a writing assignment about the blind men and the elephant.