Tthanks for all the great ideas.  I agree that the title narrows it down to
a specific "person"-- meaning the reader can identify with a single
individual, like the way the "True Story" focuses on a single black woman,
Aunt Rachel.  And I like the idea that it could address the blind reader --
the member of American Christendom who just does not get it, who is
ironically sitting in darkness.

Sympathy becomes much easier when it is a single, real, blood and bones
person.

I also should probably get more hip to ideas like Sharon's -- searching
google books for the phrase, great idea.  I should also point out that the
phrase may not be so uncommon in American sermonizing even to this day,
along with other terms like heathen, the unenlightened, the lost, etc.

btw, the Isaiah reference is actually the prophet's statement about the
Jews, the chosen people who are nevertheless sitting in darkness, who will
one day see the light of Messiah. In other words, one can be chosen and yet
still blind till they see the light.  One is reminded thus of King Josiah,
discovering the book of the law, buried under rubble in the temple, in 2
Kings.  Hidden in plain sight, sort of like the Purloined Letter.  It
occurs to me that this might be easily conjoined with a debate about
American exceptionalism==a chosen people who have forgotten their roots;
i.e. a jeremiad (named for another major Hebrew prophet).

-hb


-- 
Harold K. Bush, Ph.D
Professor of English
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, MO  63108
314-977-3616 (w); 314-771-6795 (h)
<www.slu.edu/x23809.xml>