Madwoman's Dream Allegory Elephant and the Blind Men

Elephant and the Blind Men

Six blind men lived in a village. One day the villagers told them, “An elephant is coming to the village today.”
They were each curious about what an elephant might be like. They decided, “Even though we can’t see it, let us go and feel it anyway.”

So they went to find the elephant. Each of them touched the elephant.

“Hey, the elephant is a pillar,” said the first man as he touched the elephant’s leg.

“Oh, no! it is like a rope,” said the second man who touched the tail.

“Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree,” said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.

“It is like a big hand fan” said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.

“It is like a huge wall,” said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.

“It is like a solid pipe,” Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.

They argued about the elephant and each of them insisted that he was right. They were becoming agitated. A wise man passed by and saw this.

He stopped and asked them, “What is the matter?”

They said, “We cannot agree to what the elephant is like.” Each one of them told the man what he thought the elephant was like.

The wise man calmly explained to them, “All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said. Everything is dependent on your point of view.”