Blindness: Analysis of Major Characters
"Blindness" is a novel that explores the profound effects of a sudden epidemic of blindness that strikes an unnamed community, leading to societal collapse and moral degradation. The analysis of major characters reveals their complex interconnections and individual transformations as they navigate an increasingly chaotic world. The first blind man serves as a crucial figure, embodying the initial helplessness that accompanies the loss of sight, while the doctor, who tries to manage the crisis, finds himself among the afflicted. His wife, the only sighted character, pretends to be blind to support him, yet her experiences lead her into moral compromises and acts of violence.
Other key characters include the girl with dark glasses, whose carefree nature shifts to a nurturing role, and the old man with the black eye patch, who provides wisdom amidst adversity. The narrative also introduces the boy with the squint, representing innocence lost, and the thief, whose actions propel the plot into darker territories. Themes of survival, power dynamics, and the breakdown of social order are prevalent, as characters grapple with their new realities in a lawless environment. Ultimately, "Blindness" presents a poignant commentary on human nature under duress, exploring how individuals respond to loss, fear, and the struggle for survival.
Blindness: Analysis of Major Characters
Author: José de Sousa Saramago
Alternate Title: Ensaio sobre a cegueira
First published: 1995 (English translation, 1997)
Genre: Novel
Locale: Unspecified city, probably in Europe
Plot: Narrative
Time: Late twentieth century
The first blind man, the first patient in a plague of blindness that sweeps across an unnamed community in an unnamed European country. The first blind man's experience of being struck blind is an exemplar for what happens to other characters. He does not descend into darkness, as in conventional sightlessness, but views everything as milky whiteness and exhibits the relative helplessness of the newly blind. The initial individual in a group of characters all linked by eye afflictions to the doctor, he is also first among the major surviving blind characters to regain his sight.
The doctor, an ophthalmologist who treats patients with a variety of eye ailments. A kindly, middle-aged professional, he too is struck blind and conscientiously contacts health authorities to warn of the situation and make suggestions of what to do, but no one listens to him. Instead, the military takes charge. The doctor, along with a handful of his patients —the first blind man, the girl with dark glasses, the boy with a squint, the old man with the black eye patch, and others associated with them—are deemed contaminated and forcibly removed to an abandoned mental hospital where nervous soldiers guard them.
The doctor's wife, a woman in her late forties. She is the only character who can see, but she pretends to be sightless so she can accompany her husband when the blind are quarantined in a deserted mental hospital. She continues to conceal her ability to see to avoid becoming a servant to others who band together as a unit. Nonetheless, like the blind surrounding her, she too descends into degradation and violence. In exchange for food, she willingly submits to brutal sexual abuse at the hands of a group of armed men who take control of the mental hospital, and ultimately commits murder with a pair of scissors. Symbolic of the adage about the one-eyed person ruling the country of the blind, she is the natural leader of the doctor and his patients after they break free and in fight for survival in the chaotic world outside.
The girl with dark glasses, a pretty young woman with conjunctivitis, a condition that is ironically cured during her blindness. One of the doctor's patients, she is carefree, sexually active, and self-centered until her maternal instincts are awakened and she voluntarily begins caring for the boy with the squint. She sleeps with the doctor—an act that the doctor's wife observes and chooses to accept—and eventually becomes the companion of the old man with the black eye patch, both before and after they regain sight.
The old man with the black eye patch, a white-haired, balding, philosophical individual. Another of the doctor's patients, he wears a glass eye beneath the eye patch and has a cataract in his remaining eye. Capable of making sharp observations despite his blindness, he has a portable radio through which the quarantined blind can keep in touch with an outside world as disorganized and lawless as the microcosm in the mental hospital.
The boy with the squint, a young child who cries for his mother, from whom he becomes separated during the chaos of the blindness epidemic. The girl with dark glasses kindly takes charge of him as a surrogate mother, and the boy, representative of the infantile state into which adults have been thrust, eventually quiets.
The thief, a bystander who guides the first blind man home. Afterward, the thief steals the blind man's car before he himself is struck blind. Later, at the mental hospital, he gropes the girl with dark glasses, who kicks him with her high heels, causing an injury that becomes infected and indirectly results in his death.
The first blind man's wife, initially confined to a separate ward in the mental hospital among those considered contaminated because they had contact with the blind. She too eventually becomes blind, after which she is reunited with her husband and becomes part of the group associated with the doctor and the doctor's wife.
The dog of the tears, a stray that becomes attached to the group after they flee from the mental hospital. Unlike other abandoned canine pets that roam the streets in packs devouring corpses, the dog of the tears remains domesticated and loyal to its chosen humans.
The taxi driver, a man who transports the first blind man and the first blind man's wife to the doctor's office. He is struck blind and confined to the mental hospital, where he is killed when the soldiers on guard panic and shoot a number of the inmates.
The policeman, one of several law enforcement officials who become blind in the course of performing their duties. He helps the thief after the thief becomes blind and is among those the soldiers shoot to death.
The blind man with a gun, a man who takes charge of a ward in the mental hospital. With a group of like-minded blind thugs, he demands other inmates pay for government-provided food, first confiscating their valuables and thensubjectingthewomentogangrapebeforehefinallysuffers a violent death himself.
The blind accountant, a man blind since before the epidemic, who records in braille the valuables that the blind man with a gun collects. He briefly leads the gang of thugs after the blind man with the gun is killed, but perishes with his cohorts when the mental hospital is set ablaze.