A Man Who Had No Eyes

At around 1,000 words, “A Man Who Had No Eyes” by American author MacKinlay Kantor (born Benjamin MacKinlay Kantor) can be considered an example of flash fiction. The short story was first published in The Monitor in 1931. It is one of Kantor’s early works of fiction and is markedly different from his later works of historical fiction, which earned him literary fame. Kantor was best known for his prolific novels, many of which are set during the American Civil War. Kantor received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1956 for his Civil War novel Andersonville (1955). He worked in London as a war correspondent for a Los Angeles newspaper during World War II, and he brought his own unique understanding of warfare and its consequences to his fiction.

In “A Man Who Had No Eyes,” the third-person omniscient narrator relays a short but eventful meeting between a well-off insurance salesperson, Mr. Parsons, and a “blind beggar.” The latter accosts Mr. Parsons and insists on selling him a cigarette lighter, as the man refuses charity. After a series of exchanges, Mr.