Blindness (1995) (edit title/settings)

Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit see section history

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Summary edit see section history

Characters/People edit see section history

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• The Doctor's Wife: The doctor's wife is the only character in the entire novel who does not lose her sight. This phenomenon remains unexplained in the novel. Unable to leave her husband to be interned, she lies to the doctors and claims to be blind. At this point she is interned with the rest of the afflicted. Once inside, she attempts to organize, but she is unable to check the animality of the compound. When one ward begins withholding food and demanding that the women of other wards sleep with them to be fed, she kills the leader of their ward. Once they escape the compound, she helps her group survive in the city. The doctor's wife is the de facto leader of their small group, although in the end she often serves their disabled needs.
• The Doctor: The doctor is an ophthalmologist who is stricken blind after treating a patient with "the white sickness." He is one of the first people to be quarantined and, due to his medical expertise and the fact that he and his wife were the first internees, he has a certain authority in the quarantine. Much of this authority, though, comes from the fact that his wife can see and gives him inside information into the goings ons of the quarantine. When they finally leave the quarantine, the group of blind internees live at his house.
• The girl with the dark glasses: The girl with the dark glasses is a former part-time prostitute who is struck blind while with a customer. She is unceremoniously removed from the hotel and taken to the quarantine. Once inside, she joins the small group of people who were contaminated at the doctor's office. When the car thief gropes her on the way to the lavatory, she kicks him – giving him a wound from which he will eventually die. While inside, she also takes care of the boy with the squint, whose mother is nowhere to be found. At the end of the story, she and the old man with the black eye patch become lovers.
• The old man with the black eye patch: The old man with the black eye patch is the last person to join the first ward. He brings with him a portable transistor radio that allows the internees to listen to the news. He is also the main architect of the failed attack on the ward of hoodlums hoarding the food rations. Once the group escapes the quarantine, the old man becomes the lover of the girl with the dark glasses.
• The dog of tears: The dog of tears is a dog that joins the small group of blind when they leave the quarantine. While he is mostly loyal to the doctor's wife, he helps the whole group by protecting them all from packs of dogs who are becoming more feral by the day. He is called the dog of tears because he becomes attached to the group when he licks the tears off the face of the doctor's wife.
• The boy with the squint: The boy with the squint was a patient of the doctor, where he became infected. He is brought to the quarantine without his mother and soon falls in with the group in the first ward. The girl with the dark glasses feeds him and takes care of him like a mother.
• The car thief: Steals the blind mans car after helping him get home.
• The first blind man: The first man to go blind is struck blind in the middle of traffic, waiting at a stoplight. He is immediately taken home and then to the doctor's office, where he infects all of the other patients. He is one of the principle members of the first ward - the ward with all of the original internees.
• The first blind man's wife: The wife of the first blind man goes blind soon after helping her husband to the quarantine. They are reunited by pure chance in the quarantine. Once inside, she also joins the first ward with the doctor and the doctor's wife. When the ward of hoodlums begins to demand that the women sleep with them in order to be fed, the first blind man's wife volunteers to go, in solidarity with the others.
• The man with the gun: The man with the gun is the leader of the ward of hoodlums that seizes control of the food supply in the quarantine. He and his ward take the rations by force and threaten to shoot anyone who doesn't comply. This ward extorts valuables from the other internees in exchange for food and, when the bracelets and watches run out, they begin to rape the women. He is later stabbed to death by the doctor's wife.
• The blind accountant: This man is not one of those afflicted by the "white sickness" -- rather he has been blind since birth. He is the only one in the ward who can read and write braille and who knows how to use a walking stick. Additionally, he is the second in command to the man with the gun in the ward of hoodlums. When the doctor's wife kills the man with the gun, the blind accountant takes the gun and tries to seize control but he is unable to rally support. He dies when one of the rape victims sets fire to the ward.

Quotes edit see section history

• “"bir parça kuru ekmekten yayılan nefis koku yaşamın özü, hatta ta kendisi sayılabilirdi."”

• “"Tüm anlatıların evrenin yaratılış anlatısına benzediğini, o sırada kimsenin orada olmadığını, olaya kimsenin tanık olmadığını ama herkesin ne olup bittiğini bildiğini söyleyeceğiz."”

• “"If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals."”

  The doctor's wife

• “"Fighting has always been a form of blindness."”

  The doctor

• “"...nor I your face."”

  The doctor's wife

• “"Inside us there is something with no name, that something is what we are."”

  The girl with the dark glasses

• “"The door is the outstretched hand of the house"”

  Narrator

• “"There are no blind people, only blindness."”

  The doctor

• “"Do not lose yourself."”

  The writer

• “"When is it necessary to kill? When something that is alive is already dead."”

  The doctor's wife

• “When what is still alive is already dead. She shook her head and thought, And what does that mean, words, nothing but words.”

• “It is clear that here no one can be saved, blindness is also this, to live in a world where all hope is gone.”

• Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers

• Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.

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• I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

  Highlighted by 64 Kindle customers

• The good and the evil resulting from our words and deeds go on apportioning themselves, one assumes in a reasonably uniform and balanced way, throughout all the days to follow, including those endless days, when we shall not be here to find out, to congratulate ourselves or ask for pardon, indeed there are those who claim that this is the much-talked-of immortality,

  Highlighted by 59 Kindle customers

• if, before every action, we were to begin by weighing up the consequences, thinking about them in earnest, first the immediate consequences, then the probable, then the possible, then the imaginable ones, we should never move beyond the point where our first thought brought us to a halt.

  Highlighted by 57 Kindle customers

• we were already blind the moment we turned blind, fear struck us blind, fear will keep us blind,

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• If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals,

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• With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.

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• Then, as if he had just discovered something that he should have known a long time ago, he murmured sadly, This is the stuff we're made of, half indifference and half malice.

  Highlighted by 46 Kindle customers

• We all have our moments of weakness, just as well that we are still capable of weeping, tears are often our salvation, there are times when we would die if we did not weep,

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• The sceptics, who are many and stubborn, claim that, when it comes to human nature, if it is true that the opportunity does not always make the thief, it is also true that it helps a lot.

  Highlighted by 28 Kindle customers

First Sentence edit see section history

Glossary edit see section history

• Agnosia: Condition where the brain becomes unable to identify objects seen by the eyes.
• Amaurosis: Condition where the brain spontaneously becomes unable to process images, leading to total blindness.
• Anthropophagy: The practice of eating other human beings; cannibalism. Used to refer to both nutritional and ritual consumption of other humans.
• Chorizo: A kind of spicy sausage that is common throughout the Portuguese and Spanish speaking world.
• Commission: The opposite of omission, used to refer to the process of seeking out or achieving something. Alludes to the Catholic distinction between sins of omission and commission: "Forgive us for what we have done and what we have failed to do."
• Concave: A plane or a line that curves away from the viewer. Often used to refer to lenses.
• Conjunctivitis: "Pink eye" or "Madras eye." A temporary condition in which the conjunctiva or connective tissue around the eyeball becomes inflamed.
• Convex: A plane or a line that curves towards the viewer. Often used to refer to lenses.
• Delinquency: Failure to do what the law requires.
• Expropriation: The confiscation of private property by the state or by another person.
• Offal: Internal organs of an animal, often consumed for food. Includes tripe, brains, tongue, heart, head and even bones and marrow.
• Omission: The opposite of commission, used to refer to the process of failing to do or avoiding something. Alludes to the Catholic distinction between sins of omission and commission: "Forgive us for what we have done and what we have failed to do."
• Ophthalmascope: A medical instrument used to examine the eye. Consists of a light and a magnifying glass, used to examine the health of the vitreous humor.
• Phosphorized: Process by which flammable gasses begin to burn constantly, without spreading or going out. Seen in will'o'wisps, or swamp gas.
• Quarantine: Noun or verb. Technique whereby infected members of a population are isolated in order to avoid the spread of contagion among the population.
• Reconnoitre: Explore with the intent to find information; reconnaissance.
• Refuse: Garbage
• Torpor: Literally, torpor refers to temporary hibernation where the organism slows down its metabolic functions. Figuratively, torpor can refer to any state of deep sleep or inaction.
• Vertigo: An inability to get one's balance or orient oneself. May be a result of trauma to the inner ear or psychologically induced.
• Vicissitude: The details or interior of a thing or an operation.

Themes & Symbolism edit see section history

• Disease: An important theme in blindness is the nature of disease. The "white sickness" is a different kind of disease in that it disables the infected without killing them. This is partially why it is so rampant; in most epidemic situations, the diseased die off and eliminate themselves as possible sources of contamination. This unique situation poses several problems for the way that we normally view disease.The first question that the "white sickness" brings to mind is the adequacy of our definition of disease. Usually we think of disease as being something which inflicts pain, discomfort or death. Pain or discomfort, though, is usually what drives one to the doctor in the first place. In the case of the "white sickness," there is no pain. The infected are not even truly "blind" in the traditional sense, since they can see a cloud of whiteness around them. We can see, then, that our definition of disease would not be adequate to describe the phenomenon of the white sickness. It is also to be noted that disease is most often thought of as being a deviation from the normal. The question then arises, though, as to what happens when the normal shifts so radically. Usually this situation is avoided, since the diseased eventually die. In this case of the "white sickness," though, this does not happen, meaning that blind essentially becomes the new normal, which accounts for the isolation of the doctor's wife.Another problem raised by the "white sickness" is the effectiveness of our technology in the face of a disease which cripples our ability to use that technology. This is seen in the novel, when the great medical minds are called upon to discuss the disease and they are, in turn, struck blind. The uselessness of the doctor's instruments also makes clear the contingency of our technology. These technologies that we rely upon are useless without someone to be able or know how to utilize them -- a fact that we forget until it is too late.
• The soul: There are several debates in the novel as to the nature of the soul. The doctor regards the eyes to be the place most likely to house the soul, and thus going blind to be akin to losing one's soul. The old man with the eye patch seems to regard the mind as more important whereas the girl with the dark glasses asserts that the soul, by its very nature cannot be named.The doctor says on several occasions that the eyes are the most probable residence of the soul, if such a thing exists. Thus, for the doctor, the loss of sight is the equivalent of damnation. This is supported by the many references to the similarity of the world of the blind to Dante's inferno. The smell of the quarantine and the smell of the supermarket store room filled with dead bodies are particularly potent. The doctor's belief is also clearly supported by the abysmal situation that the world is thrown into, a situation for which there seems to be no recourse, when they lose their sight. How long would they remain recognizable as human at all if they continue on this course?The old man with the eye patch thinks that there is no such thing as a soul, only a mind. This mind, of course, is altered by the blindness, but not in any drastic way. Thus, humanity is basically unchanged by the blindness. The main change from the old man's point of view is that people now do not need a veil of civilization to hide their nature. While the inability to see is a big problem, the bigger and maybe more fundamental problem is that people do not need to be responsible for their actions, since no one can see. Thus, for the old man, the blindness does not alter the soul or the mind, just sets it free with horrible results.The girl with the dark glasses has a different take on the problem of the soul. The girl with the dark glasses has an obstinate belief in the humanity of human beings. Nothing we can do or say can take this away. Small moments of humanity in the plot support her point of view; the solidarity of the group of women in the quarantine and the old woman who honors her promise until the end.
• Memory and History: A central question through Blindness is: What will become of the human race? Is it possible to speak of humanity if there is no memory or no history. One of the central ways in which this issue comes up is with regards to the writer who is living in the house of the first blind man. He tells the doctor's wife that he has been writing even if no one can read it. We are led to believe that he is doing this not only to communicate who he is to others, but also to make sure that he does not forget who he is. This is why he tells the the doctor's wife not to lose herself, he does not want her to forget who she is. When the first blind man asks him his name, he says that it doesn't matter; since no one will ever read anything he wrote, he may as well not exist. This also brings up the question of the future. Is it possible to have a future without a past? Better said, would anyone do anything if they didn't think that anyone would remember it? We can see the immediate effect that this has on morality in the quarantine. People begin by violating relatively low-level social norms such as defecating on the ground, until they are violating high-level norms such as rape-prohibition and murder. It would be doubtful that these things would be perpetrated if there was someone who saw and who remembered. In the case of the man with the gun in the quarantine, it turns out that someone was watching and he pays the price for his transgression.
• Gender relations: One of the subthemes of Blindness is the modification of gender roles. This can be seen both in the trading of women for food in the quarantine as well as the roles of the doctor and his wife in the group.One of the most striking occurrences in the novel is the trading of women for food that occurs in the quarantine. This is, in a lot of ways, the climax (or the nadir) of society. This is the event that signals that everything has broken down. Interestingly enough, the efficiency of the food delivery is partially commended here, cautioning about the dehumanizing effects of sacrificing personal well-being for an efficient social configuration. This system, however, is doubly efficient because it results not only in the distribution of food in an orderly way, but it also concentrates the suffering in one group, the women of the quarantine. It is this mode of social configuration that the doctor's wife is able to shift by murdering the man with the gun. In many ways, the rule by rape policy of the man with the gun is based on the assumption that women are always weaker than men. This assumption is based, however, on a certain set of faculties, faculties that are different in the situation of the blind.
• Blindness: Blindness is also, in many ways, a meditation on the many different kinds of blindness. The doctor says at the end of the book that he doesn't believe that they never went blind: they were just as blind before. This is to say that it took their physical blindness to let them see their more pernicious forms of blindness.One kind of blindness that predates the "white sickness" is fighting, or disagreeing. The doctor points out as much at one point in the quarantine, "fighting has always been a kind of blindness." The doctor is also the biggest proponent of organization, he tries to organize the people in the quarantine and it is he who dismisses the blind speech-givers for not talking about organization. Ultimately it will be organization that keeps them from becoming animals. Organizing, however, require seeing, not just sight but understanding another person's position. The white sickness just makes visible this inability or lack of desire to see another person's point of view.Another kind of blindness made visible by the "white sickness" is the blindness to the fragility of society and the benefits of civilization. Those stricken by the white sickness are essentially thrown into a completely savage situation. They are, in many ways, worse off than animals because they do not know how to cope with this situation that is completely new to them. In this situation, any piece of civilization is a luxury to them and takes on a completely new importance. Take for example, the washing of the body of the rape victim who dies in the quarantine. The women wash her body and their own to distinguish themselves from animals. A glass of water also takes on a profound importance for these people who find themselves in a situation with absolutely no potable water. Their blindness makes them able to see what a miracle these small things are.
• Human nature: Blindness presents a relatively pessimistic view of human nature although there are some points of optimism. Human nature is presented as being no different, fundamentally, from animal nature – self-serving and ultimately geared towards mere survival. Its main point of divergence is the fact that humans can think of more complicated structures of exploitation. Things that we normally consider to be signs of human dignity are jettisoned first. Elementary things such as hygiene and care for our family are made obsolete. In the example of hygiene, it first becomes logistically difficult – one simply cannot find the lavatory on time. Then, it becomes a matter of knowing that no one can see you transgress these societal norms and thus cannot reprimand you. The same happens with the care of others. At first it is a matter of not being logistically able to find them, then comes the realization that they may be a burden to your personal survival. These examples argue for a human nature that needs the corrective of societal pressure to contain its "natural" state; raw human nature is essentially animal nature.Human nature in Blindness is, in fact, worse than animal nature. Take, for example, the scheme that the ward of hoodlums comes up with wherein they have the right to rape the women of the other wards in exchange for food. While the sexual interactions of animals are certainly different than ours, we would be hard pressed to find an animal group that functioned with this degree of calculated exploitation. Moreover, this situation cannot be solved by communication, but only by the murder of the leader of that group but the complete extermination of the rest of the ward.All of this pessimism, though, is counterbalanced by the shows of solidarity of the group. This can be seen mainly through the actions of the doctor's wife and the girl with the dark glasses. The girl with the dark glasses volunteers to give up her own rations of food to give to the little boy and promises to leave the group out of love for the old man. The doctor's wife serves as mother for the entire group, she feeds them and clothes them and, when necessary, defends them with force. This last thing, though, could be construed as the actions of someone who has not been animalized yet, because she retains her sight.
• The fragility of society: One of the most predominant themes in Blindness is the fragility of society. This is to say that the interpersonal web of interactions in which we live on a daily basis is actually quite tenuous, even though it seems stable. It is so fragile, in fact, that the absence of one faculty, sight in this case, can cause the whole thing to unravel. In the novel, this consequence can be seen on two levels.First, the interpersonal web of interactions unravels. People suddenly become unable to interact as they did before and this precipitates a change for the worse. Take for example the treatment of blind internees by the soldiers who are ostensibly there to guard them. On several occasions they are killed almost indiscriminately as is the case with the killing of the car thief who is trying to ask for medicine for his infected leg. An attachment of soldiers also massacres a group of blind coming to claim their food. The language used to describe the blind in these scenes is inhuman and the soldiers react to them as if they were not humans, but rather animals or monsters of some kind. The first step of this societal unraveling is the exclusion of the blind from the category of human. This is not the only example -- the blind treat each other in ways that would be unheard of in a sighted context. To take just two examples, the complete decay of the familial unit, as is exemplified by the boy with the squint who is forever separated from his mother. He cannot be the only child in this position and represents the decay of the kinship unity that is often considered the minimum unity of society. We can also look at the minimum criteria of health and sanitation that is disregarded in the wards as soon as it becomes untenable or difficult to maintain these standards.Secondly, the larger scale of infrastructure of society breaks down, such as transportation networks, government and media. These are the infrastructural elements on which the web of interpersonal relationships depends to live in a modernized society, but all fall apart as soon as sight is lost. In terms of traffic, it is easy to see that as soon as everyone is struck blind it become increasingly dangerous to drive or even to be near cars. The government and financial systems also become more and more unstable, but mostly in terms of a pervasive crisis of confidence. After the government has changed strategy several times and begins patently lying to the people, it becomes clear that hope in them is entirely ill-placed. The runs on the banks also reveal the general crisis in confidence that occurs in a world obviously tipping over the edge.

Series & Lists edit see section history

Followed by Seeing.

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. José Saramago (Author)

Other Contributors:

1. Giovanni Pontiero (Translator)
2. Margaret Jull Costa (Translator) - Completed translation after the original translator's (Giovanni Pontiero) death.

First Edition edit see section history

Awards edit see section history

• Nobel Prize in Literature (1998)

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 869.342

Notes for Parents edit see section history

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Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( S ) › Saramago, Jose
• Books › Literature & Fiction › World Literature › Portuguese
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Literary
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary

Movie Connections edit see section history

• Blindness (IMDb): 2008

More Books Like This edit see section history

Books Influenced by This Book edit see section history