Blindness

“What I’m trying to say is that if, in fact, you are blind, your blindness at this moment defies explanation.” 

The doctor says this to the first blind man when he comes into his surgery office looking for help with his condition. The doctor examines the first blind man and sees nothing mechanically wrong with his eyes. This is important for two reasons. First, it characterizes the disease (if, in fact, it is a disease—the text is unclear) as both insidious and unknown. This is not something for which there is a known cause, treatment, or cure, which contributes to the terror surrounding the disease. Second, this marks a critical moment where an office full of people are exposed. Many of these people—namely the old man with the eye patch, the girl with the dark glasses, and one of the office workers—will come together in the asylum as members of the first ward. 

“With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the color 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 rest that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny.” 

This quotation is important because it is the first instance of the second narrator in the text. The first narrator tells the story in third-person limited perspective and follows the actions of the novel’s major characters. This narrator, however, interjects themselves into the narrative as a distinct, unnamed character that refers to themselves with plural pronouns like “we” and “us.” This narrator is omniscient and gives readers both situational analysis and additional information about things happening around the world that the first narrator cannot due to its limited perspective. (For more discussion about the dual narrators in Blindness, see quote #11 on this page and the analysis of Chapters 1-4.) 

“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.” 

This line is spoken by the doctor as he tries to call government officials to report what he believes is the onset of a virulent epidemic. When he tries to explain the seriousness of the situation, low-level government officials question his credentials and make fun of his concern. This moment gives readers insight into what Saramago believes are some of the predominant elements of base human nature, and this idea—that people at their core are indifferent at best and malicious at worst—gains traction alongside the epidemic itself. It also foreshadows another central idea of the novel: the inability of the government to care for the governed. 

“She watched them twitching, tense, their necks craned as if they were sniffing at something, yet curiously, their expressions were all the same, threatening and at the same time afraid, but the fear of one was not the fear of the other, and this was no less true of the threats they offered. What could be going on between them, she wondered.” 

The doctor’s wife observes this behavior in the early occupants of the first ward. The behavior of the blind echoes that of animals, “sniffing the air” to try and distinguish one another because they no longer have sight. Saramago argues here—and throughout the novel—that the combination of blindness and social collapse turns people into animals. This scene also shows the divide between the blind and the sighted. The doctor’s wife, who is one of the most empathetic characters in the novel, realizes that blindness separates her from those around her. Without the shared experience of sightlessness, she stands apart. 

“And suppose we were to stay like this for the rest of our lives, Us, Everyone, That would be horrible, a world full of blind people, It doesn’t bear thinking about.” 

In the early days of the epidemic, the government decides to quarantine the sick to try and prevent the spread of disease. To this end, the doctor, his wife, the boy with the squint, the girl with the dark glasses, the first blind man, and the thief are transported to a dilapidated asylum. On the first night, the girl and the doctor’s wife talk to each other as they wait for the lavatory. The idea of being blind forever is a trauma that does not bear contemplating, even though that is exactly what happens by the end of the novel. This quote foreshadows the horror that awaits a society suddenly plunged into sightlessness. 

“[W]e’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 name 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.” 

This is another observation by the doctor’s wife. She realizes that none of the new internees introduce themselves by their given names; instead, they introduce themselves by occupation. The doctor’s wife says there is no longer any need for names—dogs do not need to know each other’s names to recognize one another, and neither do the blind. More importantly, the doctor’s wife implies that the blind behave this way because they are being treated by dogs in their internment. The longer they remain imprisoned like animals, she posits, the more they will lose their humanity. 

“He was surprised to discover the speed and accuracy of his reasoning and how logical he could be, he saw himself in a different light, a new man, and were it not for this damn leg he would swear he had never felt so well in his entire life.” 

At this point, the thief is gravely ill due to his leg wound and decides to take matters into his own hands. He drags himself down the stairs in hopes that he can ask for medicine or transport to a hospital. His whole life he has been a thief, stealing cars to make his own way. He takes advantage of others because he cannot fathom his own ability. Through blindness, he can suddenly see his true potential, even if that potential is cut short moments later. In that way, losing one’s literal sight can be a path to actually seeing oneself more clearly. 

“There are many ways of becoming an animal, he thought, this is just the first of them.” 

The doctor thinks this as he struggles to use the lavatory, which has become covered in excrement. Unable to clean himself, he returns to the first ward covered in his own filth. The asylum denies him and his fellow internees the common dignity people deserve by virtue of being human, which slowly turns them into animals. 

“If we cannot live entirely like human beings, at least let us do everything in our power not to live entirely like animals, words she repeated so often that the rest of the ward ended up by transforming her advice into a maxim, a dictum, into a doctrine, a rule of life, words which deep down were so simple and elementary […] that it contributed […] to the warm welcome the old man with the black eyepatch found there.” 

This quote once again demonstrates the slow dissolution of both society and humanity within the asylum. The doctor’s wife reminds her ward mates that being blind does not make them any less human, and in doing so, she bonds them together in a community. This quote also foregrounds the importance of maxims within the novel. These proverbs and sayings pop up in every chapter, and they serve to help the blind—and the readers—try to make sense of a world in chaos. Finally, this quote shows the power of the doctor’s wife, which manifests more powerfully later in the novel. She becomes a salvific figure as the novel progresses, which begins here as she restores at least a modicum of dignity to the people around her. 

“The reason for the previously unforeseen change is the rather formal controlled language, used by the narrator, which almost disqualifies him as a complementary reporter, however important he may be, because without him we would have no way of knowing what happened in the outside world, as a complementary reporter, as we were saying, of these extraordinary events, when as we know the description of any facts can only gain with the rigour and suitability of the terms used.” 

This is a very important quotation when it comes to understanding the narrative structure of the novel. Initially, there seems to be just one narrator, who is unnamed and tells the story through a third-person limited perspective. The interjections initially seem like they also come from this narrator, but in this quotation, it becomes clear that the third-person limited narrator and the narrator who refers to themselves using plural pronouns (“we,” “us”) are two different characters. The dual narrative perspective allows the second narrator have an omniscient perspective and tell readers about events that the main characters cannot know about. Additionally, by using plural pronouns, the second narrator includes readers in the narrative, which makes the themes—and the horrors—more universal. 

“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, Who is peaking, asked the doctor, A blind man, replied a voice, just a blind man, for that is all we have here.” 

Throughout the novel, Saramago connects the ideas of blindness and fear. Literal blindness makes the characters afraid—they have been plunged into sightlessness which renders the world around them a foreign and hostile place. They are stripped of their autonomy because society is designed to accommodate the able-bodied, not the disabled. On a metaphorical level, blindness results from fear as well. Being afraid of others makes people blind to their needs, and it renders people invisible to one another and, as in the case of the thief, invisible to themselves. 

“Some will hate you for seeing, don’t think that blindness has made us better people.” 

The doctor’s wife considers revealing that she can see, but her husband warns her that the consequences could be dire. Blindness has reduced many people to their most basic, atavistic elements. In this moment, both the doctor’s wife and the readers realize that blindness is completely transformative, but those changes are based on the essence of a person. In other words, blindness does not change people, but it does reveal the truth. 

“It couldn’t be [fever], more likely some infinite weariness, a longing to curl up inside herself, her eyes, especially her eyes, turned inwards, more, more, more, until they could reach and observe inside her own brain, there where the difference between seeing and not seeing is invisible to the naked eye.” 

This quotation once again touches on the two types of sight in Blindness: literal sight and metaphorical sight. In this case, what the doctor’s wife sees with her literal eyes prompts her to “turn her gaze inward,” or look closely at herself, her thoughts, and her values. Metaphorical and literal sight are two separate things: One does not need literal vision in order to look closely at themselves. The difference between seeing and not seeing, in that case, has to do with the willingness of a person to look at the truth of themselves. Put another way, the “difference between seeing and not seeing” might also be considered the difference between self-examination and willful ignorance. 

“There is always someone who proposes collective action, a mass demonstration, using the forceful argument about the cumulative strength of their numbers, confirmed time and time again and sublimated in the dialectic affirmation that determined wills, in general merely capable of being added one to the other, are also very capable in certain circumstances of multiplying among themselves ad infinitum. However, it was not long before the inmates calmed down, it was enough that someone more prudent, with the simple and objective intention of pondering the advantages and risks of the action proposed, should remind the enthusiasts of the fatal effects handguns tend to have.” 

One of the central concerns of Blindness is the fragility of society. As soon as it is confronted with actual crisis, it starts to crumble. What emerges from the wreckage often is tyranny, which readers see with the rise of the blind hooligans. This quotation explains why tyranny can take hold despite power being held by so few. Collective action—that is, everyone rising up together—is effective, but it only works when individuals are willing to bear consequences for the greater good. The reason collective action rarely happens is because people’ s individual needs outweigh the needs of the many. In the case of this quote, “prudence” prevents people from taking the steps necessary to overthrow tyrants. 

“[T]hus proving once more, that appearances are deceptive, that it is not from someone’s face and the litheness of their body that we can judge their strength of heart.” 

In many ways, Blindness argues that sight, not sightlessness, renders people blind to the truth around them. Readers see this here, where Saramago explains that too often a person’s visual appearance—that is, what others can see and “know” about them—keeps others from truly knowing who they are. Put another way, Saramago argues people should not judge a book by its cover. 

“The gate is wide open, the madmen escape.” 

This quote signals a critical plot point in the novel. The asylum has burned down, and the blind have fled to the yard. They soon realize that the soldiers have disappeared, and after a hellish imprisonment, they are now free. It is important to note, however, that the term “madmen” carries significant weight here. While Saramago is certainly referring to the asylum itself, he also references the experience of internment. The people who leave have been transformed through depravation, poor treatment, and violence and they carry those lessons with them into the outside world. 

“[E]veryone is blind, the whole city, the entire country, if anyone can still see, they say nothing, keep it to themselves.” 

The doctor’s wife learns this from a man she encounters in a pharmacy right after she and her group escape from quarantine. In one sentence, Saramago shows readers what has been happening while the members of the first ward were locked away. While the collapse of society was implied—the lights turn off, the food stops coming—the doctor’s wife and the readers are confronted with the stark reality of the situation. This quotation drives home the horror of the epidemic: There is no longer a government, much less a society. The group from the first ward has just traded one madhouse for another.

“She looked at them, her eyes filled with tears, there they were, as dependent on her as little children on their mother.”

The idea of motherhood crops up throughout the novel. It begins with the girl with the dark glasses, who takes the boy with the squint under her wing. She cares for him in the ward, keeping him close, comforting him, and giving him most of her food. Motherhood is also connected to the doctor’s wife, who is the caretaker of six people rendered childlike by blindness. 

“What’s the world like these days, the old man with the black eyepatch 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 have to live through.” 

One of the things blindness does in the novel is break down barriers, for better and for worse. In this case, the doctor’s wife says that there is no difference between life in the asylum and the world outside. As she speaks, she breaks those distinctions down even further. All barriers have broken down—social, temporal, and otherwise. The woman’s last assertion is particularly dour. When she says that there is no difference between “what we’re living through and what we have to live through,” she means that there is no hope that things will be better; their current situation is as good as it gets. 

“[B]lind in eyes and blind in feelings, because the feelings with which we have lived and which allowed ups to live as we were, depended on our having the eyes we were born with, without eyes feelings become something different, we do not know how, we do not know what, you saw we’re dead because we’re blind, there you have it.” 

This quotation marks one of the many philosophical moments in the novel. Here, the doctor’s wife argues that people can only feel true sentiment if they can see. When the girl says that she has feelings and is blind, the doctor’s wife says those feelings come from her memory. Because she once had sight, she also has actual feelings. As those memories diminish, so will the verisimilitude of one’s emotions. This is a moment that critics point to as an example of ableism, which is discrimination against people with physical, intellectual, or psychiatric disabilities. To imply that blind people cannot experience true feelings suggests that the blind are somehow less than those with sight, which is a textbook example of discriminatory thinking. 

“Only God sees us, said the wife of the first blind man, who, despite disappointments and setbacks, clings to the belief that God is not blind, to which the doctor’s wife replies, Not even he, the sky is clouded over, Only I can see you.” 

This quotation is particularly important for understanding the doctor’s wife’s role in the novel. While she starts off the novel as a dutiful spouse, she becomes much more of a salvific figure as the novel unfolds. Not only does she sacrifice herself for the good others, she loves them despite their poor behavior. She helps them retain their humanity and cares for them when no one else will. In this quotation, the wife of the first blind man says that she believes “God is not blind,” meaning God can see her. However, the doctor’s wife is the only one with sight, which further solidifies her role as a spiritual figure. 

“She is the one who can see, she is the one who has protected us, cared for us and fed us, it would not be surprising that she should have given me this discreet attention, it is what his reason told him, but he did not believe in reason.” 

This quote reiterates the point above. Once again, readers see how the main characters in the novel see the doctor’s wife as more than a leader—she is their savior, too. Her group sees her as loving and caring, not unlike the Judeo-Christian concept of God. 

“In a way I am, I am blind with your blindness, perhaps I might be able to see better if there were more of us who could see.” 

The doctor’s wife’s focus on caring for the blind has limited her own metaphorical sight. She can only see the immediate future—she can no longer see beyond the tragedy, violence, and filth that make up her life. Were there more sighted people to share the burden, she would be less blinded by duty and fear. In other words, she would have more ability to look beyond literal survival and see what makes people human.