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.