Perspective, Empathy, and Activism

The chapter poses a unique question: How does Gaiman's writing construct images in moments where no visuals are presented?An analysis of Gaiman's most recent nonfiction collection, The View From the Cheap Seats, it takes as its starting point the notion of situatednessvis-à-vis points of view, contending that it is precisely Gaiman's disarming "view from the nosebleed section" that allows him to make his incisive, meaningful interventions into the world outside his writing through his writing: activism by any other measure. The visual inflections in Prescott's reading of View are metaphorical as it examines the concepts of sight and blindness, position and disposition, visibility and invisibility. However, as Prescott reminds us, Gaiman's work, fictional and nonfictional, is intently focused on the project of "seeing further by building doors instead of walls."