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.