The END

Saramago wraps the book up pretty much in a predicable way, but even saying that I won't give away the ending. Though this book was somewhat interesting it had it moments in which it got boring and lost my interest. The climax points of the book didn't even seem to capture my attention. It seemed the whole time that I read that a white blindness had taken my sight and forced me onwards without realizing truly what was happening. This blindness could have been because of the extravagant words that Saramago used throughout the book, or rather a topic and a voice that seemed all to calm. Along with the dialogs throughout Blindness being separated not by quotations rather just capital letter. But, when the word "I" appeared the meaning of the capital letter made no difference. Even though I seem to make this seem bad at times it made the story flow better other than when the word "I" or I'm" appeared within the talking. I would recommend this book for someone that has time to and enjoys, reading. But, for anyone who doesn't particularly enjoy reading I would say stay clear, for you would be boarded out of your mind if you can't continue reading. Even though I make this book seem terrible, it really isn't, and I said at the conclusion of reading the book that I wanted to read the other book in Saramago's somewhat two-part series, Seeing.

A very short, brief summary of the events leading up to the end of the book go somewhat like this: The doctor's wife, the doctor, the 1st blind man and his wife, the prostitute (normally referred to as the lady with the dark glasses), the man with the patch, the boy with the squint, and the 'dog of tears' arrive at the doctor's house. They take their clothes off and change into new ones. The following morninf it is raining and all three women bath in the rain and the men later bathe in the tub filled with rain water. Following that 1st blind man, his wife, and the doctor's wife go to the 1st blind man's house to find a man and his family have moved in after their house was overtaken. That man was a writer and was writing about his experiences as a blind man (by now the whole city, and it seems the whole country, if not the whole world, has gone blind except the doctor's wife). The doctor's wife reads what he has written and tells him that she can see and stayed at the asylum and he asks her if one day she will tell him her story. She says yes. The prostitute goes back to her place to find the lady on the 1sty floor dead. The doctor's wife, the prostitute, and the doctor bury her. The rest of the book is to near the end to give away what happens after this burial. Just to give one a hint, the doctor's wife finds two amazing/grotesque situations/events. Along with many other mysterious things.

Total Blindness!!

Jose Saramago has quite the imagination. He pulls in many different situations that could be answered, responded to, in various ways. Saramago has people form different groups in society and shows how the others respond to them. He uses imagery to make the reader feel like they are in the asylum or on the streets with the rest of the 'blind' people. You feel that you are captured and that this epidemic is actually occurring even though you have the sight to read the pages as they go by.

Ideas, ideals, and concepts show up in these chapters which challenge your own ideas and concepts. Equality is shown throughout the book. The idea that no one can see therefore everyone is equal. Since the distinguishing factors that were present with vision no longer played a large role in the internees' lives: gender, race, age, looks, etc... "age is of no account, nor sex" (Saramago 203). This can even be extended to discrimination; since, after all no one can see and thus it would be hard to discriminate against each other. But, Saramago shows that discrimination will always be around even if it doesn't have to do with the usual discriminating factors of race and gender. Saramago uses the different wards within the asylum to show discrimination. All the wards think that they are better than the others and believe that they should be given the most food. The concept of the survival of the fittest plays a role in Blindness as well. The people who aren't as strong or as capable of obtaining food, die. "In a square surrounded by trees, with a statue in the middle, a pack of dogs is devouring a man's corpse" (Saramago 263). Other concepts that Saramago brings up are those of the thirst for power, the idea that one's own life is worth more than a groups, whether murder is justified in the right circumstances, what is the best way to serve the greatest number, do ethics change if everyone has gone blind, and many other concepts and ideas are brought up.

A very short summary of what happened in the past few chapters goes something like this: The new group of internees has caused an overpopulation of the asylum. Within that group a group of thugs formed that took over the rations of food and the food distribution. The ring leader of the group has a gun and the others are armed with various items such a bed posts. The thugs make all the other internees give all of their possessions over to them for food. But, the thugs only give very little food over. Then the thugs make the women of the wards sleep with them. The doctor's wife stabbed the ring leader in the throat with a pair of scissors which lead to his death. The tide turned and the thugs put up a barricade of beds in front of the doorway to their ward. Another internee lit the beds on fire, which lead to the whole asylum burning down and the blind internees fleeing the asylum only to find that their were no longer any guards. This leads them to the city where they find that everyone has gone blind and are looking for food. The electrictiy and water have stopped working and people go from store to store to house to car in search of food and shelter, wandering aimlessly. The doctor, doctor's wife, the 1st blind man and his wife, the girl with the dark glasses (the prostitute), the child with the squint, and the man with the eye patch go around together in search of food and shelter. The doctor's wife finds a hidden warehouse below a grocery store with food. Then the group goes to the prostitute's house to find that it has been stripped of its food by the lady on the 1st floor and no other inhabitants are in the shady building. The prostitute's parents are no where to be found as well. The group then leaves, a dog has been following them for a while, to go to the doctor's house.

The Outside World

Saramago has brought into Blindness a two new characters that have added to the suspense of the book. One of the characters is the man that was at the doctor's office with a patch over his bad eye, and the second is a mysterious man that the reader doesn't know who they are. It has added a twist to the story, and I foreshadow that this 'mysterious blind man' will turn out to be some important person or someone of high raking in society. When the doctor asked who the mystery man is, the response is, "A blind man, just a blind man. For that is all we have here" (Saramago 129).

The chapter begins with there being talk about how now the asylum is completely full and how that now the rations of food are going to be harder to give out and how the situation has become disturbing and utterly filthy. It goes on to explain how when the man with the patch entered the first ward and asked if there was a bed, which there was, the one the car thief had occupied before he was shot, and the doctor, with the help of his wife noticing that he was the one man missing from his patients the day of the first case of blindness. The doctor asks him if he is that man and then feels his face to re-assure his findings. The doctor's wife sees this new internees watch working and hears the time on the radio that this man bought and re-sets her watch in utter joy. This almost goes bad for her because some her her wind her watch and ask what just occurred, after all a blind person can't see a watch. The radio turns out to provide the internees with information of the growing epidemic of 'white blindness' and the patch man tells all the internees what was going on outside the asylum before he went blind. He described car crashes, whole families going blind, and a growing scare throughout the city. Then the internees in the 1st ward 'play a game' telling each other the last thing they saw before they went blind. The internees come to the conclusion that it was fear that caused them all to go 'blind'.

Empty Stomachs

Blindness has seemed to be going in the direction that I thought that it would, having more and more people going blind and the asylum becoming crowed and smelling to high Heaven.
Jose Saramago has made his characters round without even making the reader be able to see them. The characters voices, the language used with the individual, sets them apart from each other. When Saramago has people talking in his book he doesn't used the formal, ".....", style; he just has people talk and doesn't use the quotations and has multiple people talk in one sentence without referring to who is doing the talking. The voice of the person signifies who they are.

The chapter starts out with the doctor's wife waking to realize that she had forgot to wind her watch, and she starts to weep and the prostitute goes and comforts her. The doctor's wife says, "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" (Saramago 96). After that there are many internees that are waiting for food in the hallway, waiting for a voice on the loud speaker to tell them that the food was arriving. But, when the loud speaker went on and the food was to have been said to be delivered, many of the internees who had previously been anxiously been waiting for the food, questioned whether or not they should go and get the food due to the previous massacre. Eventually they decided to go, after all with no food they would die eventually. The food was placed outside the asylum, so it made for the internees to have to try to find it in the yard. This caused many to go moving around the ground till someone finally found the food with the help, directions, from the army official. One man stood out, he had decided to stay holding onto the rope when he went out with the group to find the food, and once he had decided to let go he had gotten lost and was the only one stranded in the yard as the others got the food back to the doors. He panicked and screamed for help; one of the soldiers told him the wrong directions, telling him to come towards them so that he would be shoot (I love the comment by Saramago on the description of the bad soldier, "...belonged to that class of people who are not to be trusted with a rifle" (Saramago 103). The sergeant tells the lost man to stop and turn around, and the other internees make noise for the lost man to follow. During this time multiple blind internees had taken multiple rations of food and ran off to hide. This was noticed by the other internees that decided when they got back to the others that they should eat and wait for the 'stealers' to come back to the wings. This is the first time that the blind internees agree as a whole that they need some sort of organization. The 'stealers' never show up, they seemed to have hidden themselves. The chapter end with a lot more blind people being transfered to the asylum and there was a fight between the new 'blind internees' and the 'contaminated internees' that lead to some of the 'contaminated' to becoming 'blind'. As well as all of that the man with the black patch on his eye, from the doctor's office, has showed up and found the corpses on his first visit.

The Burial, and more Burials

Jose Saramago keeps you guessing what is going to happen next. The car thief was dead and the blind people had to bury him, what a predicament. This chapter has caused me to foreshadow that eventually the whole city and world will go blind in time with the number of 'blind people' growing geometrically. Saramago has brought in a new perspective to the story with the internees in the other wing who are 'infected' but not blind yet. Saramago has them bring up an ethical question weather it would be ethical or not to take the 'blind' peoples' food even though the blind peoples would never know, and since they hadn't received their rations yet. As well as the question that would be is it ethical to eat the food that people died trying to get before burring the dead?

The chapter starts out with the 'blind' internees having to find a way to bury the dead car thief. They can't find anything in the facility to dig with, so the doctors wife asks the soldiers for food and a shovel. They are granted the shovel which is thrown over the fence of the facility. The wife goes to get it and acts like she is blind going out to get it, but once she reaches it with the 'guidance' of the sergeant, on all fours; she stands up and walks back to the door in a straight line, stops before the door and opens it. The soldiers are amazed at this, but the sergeant says, "The blind learn quickly how to find their way around" (Saramago 80). With the shovel in hand the internees are able to dig a shallow hole and bury the car thief. The chapter goes on with the soldiers coming with food, and the internees run to get the food and two soldiers open fire on them and killing around seven or so. The sergeant says over the loud speaker, "We were not to blame, we were not to blame" (Saramago 84) Those soldiers go blind. The non-blind internees debate weather to take the food, they get scared away. The 'blind' peoples come and take the corpses and food. They decide to eat first. The doctors wife hands out food and notices that some get food twice but decides it wise not to say anything, how could she know. Then the 'blind' men decide to bury the dead according to each ward, there were four from the doctors ward. They buried the men in the middle of the night; since after all it made no difference all they saw was white. The men from the other ward decide to sleep and bury their dead in the morning. The chapter ends with the doctor going to the bathroom but not having any toilet paper. His wife cleans him up, but the facility is starting to stink and be disgusting. And finally someone says in response to groaning and grunts, "Pigs, there like pigs" (Saramago 93).

The First to Go

As this book continues it gets more and more interesting. Jose Saramago is also bringing up a lot of ethical issues such as: Is the safety of the city worth the life of a few? Is it ethical to coop people up if it is against their own will and only based on an assumption? Is it ethical to fire on an unarmed crowd that is only running in confusion?....These are only a few of the many topics that have been pursued in this book already.

The number people that have been shut up in the insane asylum has been greatly increased. This influx of people has caused there to be a shortage of food for the 'blind' people. The car thief's condition has gotten worse and when the doctors wife went over to look at it, pretending not to be able to see, the car thief realized that she wasn't blind. This caused the doctor's wife to step away in shock but at the same time wondering what this might mean for her if the thief told the others her secret. This was resolved when the thief told her that her secret was safe with him. The doctor and his wife then went to the door of the facility that they were at and asked for more food and medical supplies for the car thief. Only the food was granted. So, the car thief sick of waiting for medical supplies, sneaked out of the main room while everyone was sleeping and drug himself to the main door. When at the main door he opened it and shouted out, but a private on command got trigger-happy and shoot him three times in the head. "The noise of the blast immediately brought the soldiers, half dress from their tents.....The sergeant was already on the scene, What the hell is going on, A blind man, a blind man, stuttered the soldier" (Saramago 75). This action caused a lot of problems on both sides of the 38th parallel between the 'blind' people and the rest of the world.

The Epidemic of "White Blindness"

Jose Saramago has a voluminous imagination. He has made the main characters of the book blind! Though the story has been switching perspectives from a doctor, to two other 'blind' men, a prostitute, and finally ending with the doctors wife who has told everyone she has went 'blind' even though she still has her vision.

I'm foreshadowing that the rest of the book will be told from the doctor's wife's perspective because she is the only person that can see in the group of the characters in the book.

What has happened in the book was that all the 'blind' people: the doctor, a prostitute, the original blind man, the man who stole the blind man's car, and a small 'squinting' boy, and the doctors wife (who has told everyone she is blind, and only her husband knows she isn't), have been transfered into a run down insane asylum. They are locked into the building so that the 'epidemic' won't spread and infect the entire population, causing the world to go into sudden 'white blindness'. They are given directions and orders over a loud system and are to be given food once a day and burn the left overs and trays. The 'blind' people are told that if they burn the building down the firefighters will just let it burn. A sketchy situation I would say.

The end of the chapter has to do with the 'blind' people having to find a bathroom, the little boy wetting himself, the robber and the original man fighting, the prostitute kicking the robber in the leg after he grabs at her, the doctor and wife fixing his wound, the robber jacking off in the bathroom, and ending with them finding beds and going to sleep.

Blindness

I have started reading Jose Saramago's Blindness. The book has been an international best seller, awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and has said to be, "A shattering work by a literary master" (The Boston Globe).

Blindness starts out with a man sitting at a red light in his car, the light turns green and he isn't moving. The irrated people that are stuck behind him start honking and getting out of their cars to see what has gone wrong with this man's car. The impatient drivers are knocking on his window and see the man say, "I am blind." Everyone standing around doesn't know what to do until a man says that he will drive the 'blind' man home.

The good samaritain drives the newly 'blind' man home and leads him to his room, and then he leaves and steals the blind man's car. The 'blind' man's blindness is unique in the way that he suddenly became blind, all he sees is white, and his eyes are in perfect condition. His wife arrives home and they go to the doctor who tells them he doesn't know what has happened.

To sum this up the doctor becomes blind, the man who stole the car becomes blind, a prostitue becomes blind and a little kid. The board decides to reason it as an emidemic.

Hi!

This is my first blog. Nice.