Blindness by Jose Saramago

What do you think his writing style symbolizes (look at the text, the punctuation, the indentations)? Think about what kinds of "blindness" we might have in our own lives, as well as what "blindness" symbolized in this book. What does it mean to see and to not see?"

Now on BLINDNESS -- There was so much symbolism, allegory, mysticism, I’m not sure I can capture all the richness of our discussion on the book, but I did select some meaningful quotes and sorted them (somewhat) into the questions we asked and discussed. I added our collective wisdom as well. The summary ended up being so many pages, that I added it as an attachment. If you don’t get the attachment (or have problems downloading), please let me know and I can send it in text.

The text was written without quotation marks and very few paragraphs, more like a “stream of consciousness.” Oh people spoke, but the volley of conversation was indicated by a comma separation and a capital letter. And you know what, it didn’t matter. Our brain adapts. We talked about how folks can read paragraphs, even when parts of the words are mixed up. I’ve done some perception research in this area and posted some of my lecture notes (from EMI2) at the very end of this email. By the way, when looking through some Saramago reviews, it is clear that he takes liberties with sentence construction and has done some of this formatting in other novels of his as well.

Here is a synopsis from altmuslim.com which says Jose Saramago's "Blindness" makes use of the allegory of God, the All-Seeing, guiding people to what they cannot see. There are many layers to the story, all tethered to a single commentary, namely, a thinly covered despondency of our day ready to show itself, but now temporarily restrained by a fundamental pointlessness that's vaguely agreed upon. One aspect that consistently juts out of the narrative, however, is the woman with eyes that work. She is the savior of her group, the guide, the person without whom doom would be inevitable. She is the Seer, as far as the blind are concerned. It has to be this way: people created with sensory functions recognizing the need for guidance from one who sees more. What would this lady's sight mean to these people had they no conception of sight? What possible value would they attach to her? But they knew something about sight, so she was their guide by default. It was an unsaid agreement that such a person should lead and be obeyed. Perhaps that's part of the allegory, of God, the All-Seeing, guiding people to what they cannot see but what can be trusted, since "sight" is known, even when lost. Or it is of prophecy, elect mortals experiencing insight delivered from above, walking people through the City.

Another book review by GL Hauptfleisch says, in Blindness the authorities start to confine the rapidly growing blind population to vacant and now armed-guarded mental hospitals. Within, hardened criminals among the blind take charge, as rapes occur and rations are stolen. Saramago ties all the disparate characters and thematic threads together, and sets an unrelenting and sustaining tone as he focuses on the actions and events surrounding one group of people whose affliction serves to point up how blindness — the metaphoric stripping away "of the mirrors to the soul," as the author reminds us — loosens the fragility of human and psychic bonds, and divests us of the will and rationale to maintain them. In this particular group, one eyewitness who pretends to be blind is central to the parable as she leads a seemingly random group of people — the first blind man, the old man with the black eye patch, a girl with dark glasses, a motherless boy, and the "dog of tears" — to the outside world that has become a chaotic world of the blind. Echoes of the Holocaust, Bosnia, and AIDS come to mind; real life means anything but release and reprieve, raising more parabolic questions and psychological quests even as sight returns.

Another reviewer, George Snedeker, a blind man, says Saramago uses a quotation from the Book of Exhortations as the epigram to Blindness: "If you can see, look. If you can look, observe". Near the end of the novel, when the blind people are getting their vision back, he has one of his characters remark:" 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" (292). These two quotations indicate the political and philosophical intention of the novel. They indicate, but do not disclose it. Blindness is clearly a sign of limitation in this novel. It causes the entire society to no longer function. It also places blind people in the condition of physical jeopardy and psychological torment. The society no longer functions because the blind are not able to provide the ordinary services that we are routinely dependent upon for survival: the production and distribution of food, water and electricity and the maintenance of the infrastructure of transportation and communication. The central problem with Saramago's novel is that his master sign "blindness" is a floating signifier. No matter what his intention, the metaphor of blindness has a real referent. Readers of this novel are faced with an ambiguity, the relationship between the "symbolic" and the "real". The authorial voice of the novel and the critical response which has appeared in the mainstream press has occluded the problem of the referent. Saramago writes as if his metaphorical depiction of misfortune and catastrophe could somehow be innocent of the cultural meanings that are routinely associated with visual impairment. It is interesting to note that reviews which have appeared in the mainstream press fail to even consider that the use of blindness as a metaphor might pose a problem.

I thought this review was interesting because, of course, people are blind in society and they function and society does not shut down. As we spoke at our meeting, Saramago’s “white blindness” is about something else than just the disability (maybe that is one reason it is “white” and not like “regular” blindness). White blindness symbolizes some other shortcomings within us.

“…a blind person with experience as a blind person is something else, he’s worth his weight in gold.” (146)

Why didn’t people have “names”?
In the story, no one was recognized by their “given name.” They earned new names once blind and the main characters all had names associated with eye conditions (the first blind man, the old man with the black eye patch, a girl with dark glasses, the eye doctor) except the boy with no mother, the dog of tears, and the doctor’s wife. The other characters also had names that described them (not connected to the eyes). Names are discussed on pages 57, 276, and 290. In addition, “eyes” are discussed on pages 123, 251, and 262.

“What fragile walls we’d make, a mere stone in the middle of the road without any hope other than to see the enemy trip over it, enemy, what enemy, no one will attack us here, even if we’d stolen and killed outside, no one is likely to come here to arrest us, the man who stole the car has never been so sure of his freedom, we’re so remote from the world that any day now, we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names, and besides, what use would names be to us, no dog recognizes another dog or knows the others by the names they have been given, a dog is identified by its scent and that is how it identifies others, here we are like another breed of dogs, we know each other’s bark or speech, as for the rest, features, colour of eyes or hair, they are of no importance, it is as if they did not exist, I can still see but for how long…” (57)

“…so as not to worsen the already difficult traffic situation or to offend the sensibility of persons who still had their eyesight and who, indifferent to more or less reassuring options, believed that the white disease was spreading by visual contact, like the evil eye. …no one’s nerves could withstand it. The worst thing is that whole families, especially the smaller ones, rapidly became families of blind people, leaving no one who could guide and look after them, nor protect sighted neighbours from them, and it was clear that these blind people, however caring a father, mother or child they might be, could not take care of each other, otherwise they would meet the same fate as the blind people in the painting, walking together, falling together, and dying together.” (123)

“…Inside us there is something that has no name, that something is what we are.” (276)

“…Blind people do not need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters…” (290)

“…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.” (326)

What is a blindspot? Blindness?
A blindspot is where I don’t see my effect. A fatal flaw? Not allowing oneself to imagine their helplessness?

“then the doctor’s wife understood that there was no sense, if there ever had been any, in going on pretending to be blind, it is clear that here no one can be saved, blindness is also this, to live in a world where all hope is gone.” (209)

“Black blindness” upon going into food cellar –
“…perhaps for an instant foolishly fearing that the wall did not continue on the other side, I’m going mad, she thought, and with good reason, making this descent into a dark pit, without light or any hope of seeing any, how far would it be, these underground stores are usually never very deep, first flight of steps, Now I know what it means to be blind, second flight of steps, I’m going to scream, I’m going to scream, third set of steps, the darkness is like a thick paste that sticks to her face, her eyes transformed into balls of pitch, What is this before me, and then another thought, even more terrifying, And how shall I find the stairs again, a sudden unsteadiness obliged her to crouch down in order to avoid simply falling over, almost fainting…” (229)

“There must be a government, said the first blind man, I’m not so sure, but if there is, it will be a government of the blind trying to rule the blind, that is to say, nothingness trying to organize nothingness…” (255)

“…blindness is the good fortune of the ugly…” (281)

“…there are no blind people, but only blindness.” (324)

When we are blind, we use our words, saying things which such conviction and meaning, and when we regain our vision “we shall know what words are really worth…” (324)

Upon the man with the eyepatch and the woman with dark glasses hooking up –
“…to tell the truth these are not the times for festivities, and hope, and when decisions are so serious as these seem to have been, it is not even surprising that someone might think that one would have to be blind to behave in this way, silence is the best applause.” (307)

“…It’s just a manner of speaking, a moment ago, when I stumbled you told me to watch where I was putting my feet, it’s the same thing, we still haven’t lost the habit of seeing, Oh God, how many times have I heard that before, exclaimed the first blind man.” (312)

“…Images see with the eyes of those who see them, only that now blindness is the lot of everyone, You can still see, I’ll see less and less all the time, even though I may not lose my eyesight I shall become more and more blind because I shall have no one to see me. (317)

“…if after turning blind I should no longer be the person I was, how would I then be able to go on loving him, and with what love, Before, when we could still see, there were also blind people, Few in comparison, the feelings in use were those of someone who could see, therefore blind people felt with the feelings of others, not as blind people the were, now, certainly, what is emerging are the real feelings of the blind, and we’re still only at the beginning, for the moment we still live on the memory of what we felt, you don’t need eyes to know what life has become today, if anyone were to tell me that one day I should kill, I’d take it as an insult, and yet I’ve killed…” (252)

How is blindness like death?
“…in death, blindness is the same for all.” (210)

“What’s the world like these days, the old man with the black eyeptach had asked, and the doctor’s wife replied, There’s no difference between inside and outside, between here and there, between the many and the few, between what we’re living through and what we shall have to live through, And the people, how are they coping, asked the girl with dark glasses, They go around like ghosts, this must be what I means to be a ghost, being certain that life exists, because your four sense say so, and yet unable to see it…” (242)

“…how fragile life is when it is abandoned…” (248)

“…what the eyes do not see the heart does not grieve over…” (262)

What about fear?
Fear makes you blind. When you can’t see, you can’t see the options.

“Fear can cause blindness, said the girl with dark glasses, Never a truer word, that could not be truer, we were already blind the moment we turned blind, fear struck us blind, fear will keep us blind.” (129)

“…you have no idea what it is like to watch two blind people fighting, Fighting has always been, more or less, a form of blindness, This is different, Do what you think best, but don’t forget what we are here, blind, simply blind, blind people with no fine speeches or commiserations…” (133)

upon regaining sight
“…he continued hearing the voice of the doctor’s wife, the boy with the squint coughed, then a great fear entered his soul, he thought he had passed form one blindness to another, that having lived in the blindness of light, he would now pass into the blindness of darkness, the fear made him tremble” (322)

Why did people become blind?
Was is a psychological or spiritual reason they became physically blind? Did their shortcomings become manifested? Does fear cause you to go blind? Were you “blinded by the light”? or was it a god or veil that merely keeps you from seeing.

Upon arriving to the doctor/wife’s home -
“…as for lighting, they had been most fortunate to find two candles in the kitchen cupboard, kept there to be used whenever there happened to be a power cut and which the doctor’s wife lit for her own benefit, the others did not need them, they already had a light inside their heads, so strong it had blinded them.”(250)

“…but in my opinion we’re already dead, we’re blind because we’re dead, or if you would prefer me to put it another way, we’re dead because we’re blind, it comes to the same thing, I can still see, Lucky for you, lucky for your husband, for me, for the others, but you don’t know how long you will go on seeing, should you become blind you will be like the rest of us, we’ll all end up like the neighbor below…” (251)

Why didn’t the wife of the eye doctor become blind?
The wife of the eye doctor had so much compassion for others, inner strength, ability to pass on courage. She wasn’t blind because she could see beyond surface and be self-sacrificing. She did what needed to be done. She made tough decisions. How many people could she actually take care of and share with? She was part of the cleansing, food, and human interaction. She does not let fear stop her. She inspired the wife of the first blind man. She was willing to look at reality and deal with it so she had less blind spots. She embraced and loved people as they were.

“The doctor’s wife consciously wanted to think that this man had stolen the food, had stolen what rightfully belonged to others, that he took food from the mouths of children, but despite these thoughts, she did not feel any contempt, not even the slightest irritation, nothing other than a strange compassion for that drooping body before her, the head lolling backwards, the long neck covered win swollen veins.” (158)

What are our essential needs? What does their presence and absence symbolize?
Food, water, shelter, and humanity come before clothing and crystal glasses. Their absence evokes images of hell (bodies being eaten by dogs, excrement, filth, fire, etc.). “Hell” exists so that we can find out who we really are when we explore its depths. Can we still be civil? What about “laws”?

“Perhaps in the other wards there are more women than men, but an unwritten law, that soon gained acceptance here and subsequently became statutory decrees that all matters have to be resolved in the wards in which they have surfaced in accordance with the precepts of the ancients, whose wisdom awe shall never tire of praising.” (172)

“What does not change either is that some take advantage of the misfortune of other, as is well known, since the beginning of the world…” (319)

What is it about blindness that caused some of the women to be more confident, takes risks, and stand up to men like their husbands?
“…what she did not want was that her husband should wake up and sense her absence in time to ask her, Where are you going, which is probably the questions husbands most frequently put to their wives, the other being Where have you been” (153)

“The men tried to justify themselves, that it was not quite like that, that they should not dramatise, what the hell, by talking things over, people can come to some understanding, it was only because custom demands that volunteers should be asked to come forward in difficult and dangerous situations, as this one undoubtedly is. We are all at risk of dying of hunger, both you and us. Some of the women calmed down by this reasoning, but one of the others, suddenly inspired, threw another log on the fire when she asked ironically, And what would you do if these rascals instead of asking for women has asked for men, what would you do then, speak up so that everyone can hear. The women were jubilant, …now they wanted to see how far that much lauded masculine logic would go, There are no pansies here, one man dared to protest, And no whores either, retorted the woman who had asked the provocative questions, and even if there were, they might not be prepared to prostitute themselves for you. Put out, the men shrugged their shoulders, aware that there was only one answer capable of satisfying these vindictive women. If they were to ask for men, we would go, but not one of them had the courage to utter these brief, explicit and uninhibited words, and they are so dismayed that they forgot that there was no great harm in saying this, since those sons of bitches were not interested in relieving themselves with men but with women.” (168)

“Wherever you go, I go, this was not the idea she now carried in her head, quite the contrary, but she did not want to discuss it, vows are not always fulfilled, sometimes out of weakness, at other times because of some superior force with which we had not reckoned.” (210)

The saviour, the choices, and the power of love. Other religious themes as well.
The cleansing by water. Washing particular body parts, as well as ritual bathing. Also, savoring and respecting a fresh drinking glass of water.

“…it is not only the voice of blood that needs no eyes, love, which people say is blind, also has a voice of its own.” (154)

“The girl with dark glasses began to weep, What an unhappy lot we are, she murmured, and then, I wanted it too, I wanted it too, you are not to blame, Be quiet the doctor’s wife said gently, let’s all keep quiet, there are times when words serve no purpose, if only I, too, could weep, say everything with tears, not have to speak in order to be understood, She sat on the edge of the bed, stretched her arm over the two bodies, as if gathering them in the same embrace, and, bending over the girl with dark glasses, she whispered in her ear, I can see …I knew …I trust you …They went on whispering to each other, first one, then the other, touching each other’s hair, the lobe of the ear, with their lips, it was an insignificant dialogue, it was a profoundly serious dialogue, if this contradiction can be reconciled, a brief conspiratorial conversation that appeared to ignore the man lying between the two of them, but involved him in a logic outside the world of commonplace ideas and realities.” (174)

“When the doctor and the old man with the black eyepatch entered the ward with the food, they did not see, could not see, seven naked women and the corpse of the woman who suffered from insomnia stretched out on her bed, cleaner than she had ever been in all her life, while another woman was washing her companions, one by one, and then herself.” (185)

“Today is today, tomorrow will bring what tomorrow brings, today is my responsibility, not tomorrow if I should turn blind, What do you mean by responsibility, The responsibility of having my eyesight when others have lost theirs, You cannot hope to guide or provide food for all the blind people in this world, I ought to, But you cannot, I shall do whatever I can to help, Of course you will, had it not been for you I might not be alive today, and I don’t want you to die now…” (252)

“…finally the sparking of the tiny flame, the surrounding space a diffuse sphere as luminous as a star glimmering through the mist, dear God, light exists and I have eyes to see, praised be light. From now on harvest would be easy.” (231)

“…The groups going around must have leaders, someone who give orders and organizes things …those who give the orders are just as blind as those who receive them, You’re not blind, said the girl with dark glasses, that’s why you were the obvious person to give orders and organize the rest of us, I don’t give orders, I organize things as best I can, I am simply the eyes that the rest of you no longer posses, A kind of natural leader, a king with eyes in the land of the blind” (256)

“…it is understandable that someone should ask how it was possible to know that these things happened so and not in some other manner, the reply to be given is that all stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.” (265)

“…we are the only woman in the world with two eyes and six hands.” (280)
just before the rain shower scene on p282

“…The question is not whether we have enough strength, the question is whether we can allow ourselves to leave this woman here” (300)

“…on that morning when there was such an abundance of water, all of it purifying.” (307)

“…it was she who wanted to have sex with me, Memory is deceiving you, you wanted her, Are you sure, I was not blind, Well, I would have sworn that, You would only perjure yourself, Strange how memory can deceive us, In this case it is easy to see, something that is offered to us is more ours than something we had to conquer…” (309)

“…In a way, everything we eat has been stolen from the mouths of others and if we rob them of too much we are responsible for their death, one way or another we are all murderers…” (314)

The fall from grace into hell before being “reborn.” The filth.
From The Theft of Spirit “Being healthy is just letting life grow through your garbage. …If you discard your garbage, then a tree can grow through it.” (131)

“…not so much as a drop of the previous liquid was coming from the taps in the houses, this is the drawback of civilization, we are so used to the convenience of piped water brought into our homes, and forget that for this to happen there have to be people to open and close distribution valves, water towers and pumps that require electrical energy, computers to regulate the deficits and administer the reserves, and all of these operations require the use of one’s eyes. Eyes are also needed to see this picture, a woman laden with plastic bags, going along a rain drenched street, amidst rotting litter and human and animal excrement, cars and trucks abandoned any old way, blocking the main thoroughfare, some of the vehicles with their tires already surrounded by grass, and the blind, the blind, open-mouthed and staring up at the white sky, it seems incredible that rain should fall from the sky.” (234)

“…it is true that there was no water with which to wash themselves, pity there was no torrential rain like that of yesterday, they would go out once more into the garden, but now naked and without shame, they would receive on their head add shoulders the generous water from the sky above, they would feel it running down their back and chest, down their legs, they could gather it in their hands, clean at last and in the cup offer it to someone to quench their thirst, no matter who, perhaps their lips would gently touch their skin before finding the water…” (255)

“We’re going to dirty the whole place, and she was right, if they were to come in with these shoes covered in mud and excrement, paradise would in a flash become hell, the latter being the second place, according to the competent authorities where the putrid, fetid, nauseating, pestilential stench is the worst thing condemned should have to bear, not the burning tongs, the cauldrons for boiling pitch and other artifacts of the foundry and the kitchen.” (271)

“…let us not forget that that was our life during the time when we were interned, we went down all the steps of indignity, all of them, until we reached total degradation, the same might happen here albeit in a different way, there we still had the excuse that the degradation belonged to someone else, not now, now we are all equal regarding good and evil, please, don’t ask me what good and what evil are, we knew what it was each time we had to act when blindness was an exception, what is right and what is wrong are simply different ways of understating our relationships with the others, not that which we have with ourselves, one should not trust the latter, forgive this moralising speech, you do not know, you cannot know, what it means to have eyes in a world in which everyone else is blind, I am not a queen, no, I am simply the one who was born to see this horror, you can feel it, I both feel and see it, and that’s enough of this dissertation…” (276)

“The next morning’s meal turned into a banquet. What was on the table, besides being very little, would repel any normal appetite, as happens at all moments of elation, the strength of the feeling took the place of hunger and their happiness was the best nourishment, nobody complained, even those who were still blind laughed as if the eyes which could already see were theirs. “ (325)

Some themes we recognized from other stories of life and humanity…
The loving scene (sometimes an orgy) before an event where people will lose their lives or dignity (sometimes this is the night before a war, in BLINDNESS it was the night before the rapes).

“When all is said and done, what is clear is that all lives end before their time.” (218)

“…beans and chickpeas, Keep what is of no use at the moment, and later you will find what you need, one of her grandmothers had told her, the water in which you soak them will also serve to cook them, and whatever remains from the cooking will cease to be water, but will have become broth. It is not only in nature that from time to time not everything is lost and something is gained.” (288)

“…You have to know beforehand what people are capable of, you have to wait, give it time, it’s time that rules, time is our gambling partner on the other side of the table and it holds all the cards of the deck in its hand, we have to guess the winning cards of life, our lives…” (318)

“What does not change either is that some take advantage of the misfortune of others, as is well know…” (319)