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.