What is the meaning of blindness by Jose Saramago?
What is the meaning of blindness by Jose Saramago?
Saramago uses a quotation from the Book of Exhortations as the epigram to Blindness: “If you can see, look. Saramago uses blindness as a metaphor for both personal misfortune and social catastrophe. The story begins when the first blind man loses his vision in his car while waiting for a traffic light to change.
Why did Jose Saramago write blindness?
Furthermore, Saramago did not write this book in order to vilify the blind. His goal was to demonstrate the fragility of human society and, using allegory, to show that basic human decency is, in his view at least, an illusion and that it too would largely vanish, if society collapsed.
What is blindness a metaphor for?
Blindness is also used as an analogy to moral deficiency. The doctor’s wife, who uses her sight to kill one of the hoodlums lamented, “Perhaps I’m the blindest of all, I’ve already killed and I’ll kill again if I have to” (p. 172). And blindness was understood to be caused by fear.
Who is the main character in blindness?
Doctor’s Wife
Woman with Dark GlassesMan with Black Eye PatchKing of Ward ThreeDoctor
Blindness/Characters
Is blindness an illness?
The leading causes of blindness and low vision in the United States are primarily age-related eye diseases such as age-related macular degeneration, cataract, diabetic retinopathy, and glaucoma. Other common eye disorders include amblyopia and strabismus.
Why is the dog of tears called so in blindness?
The dog of tears While he is mostly loyal to the doctor’s wife, he helps the whole group by protecting them all from packs of dogs who are becoming increasingly feral. He is called the dog of tears because he bonded to the group when he licked the tears off the face of the doctor’s wife.
What is blindness about book?
Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows.
What does blind symbolize?
Blindness symbolizes a refusal to see reality, or may instead refer to an inner vision, prophetic; it could mean ignorance, darkeness, error or impartiality.
What does Tiresias blindness symbolize?
Character Analysis Tiresias The blind prophet of Thebes appears in Oedipus the King and Antigone. In both plays, he represents the same force — the truth rejected by a willful and proud king, almost the personification of Fate itself.
What illness causes blindness?
What happened blindness?
From here, the retina translates the images into nerve impulses that are transmitted to the brain through the optic nerve. When any of these eye parts are damaged, either through illness or injury, blindness can occur: The lens may cloud, obscuring the light entering the eye.
Why does Saramago use blindness as a metaphor?
Ableism Accusations. Saramago predominantly uses blindness as a metaphor for central problems in human psychology and society, and many critics from disability studies have suggested that this metaphor perpetuates harmful ideas about blind people, even if this was never Saramago’s intention.
How many times have I read Blindness by Jose Saramago?
A book re-read steals time away from a new book I have yet to discover, a book that on my death bed will have gone unread. So, when I tell you that I have read Blindness, by Jose Saramago, three times, you will know how serious I am about it. Three times is two times more than I’ve ever voluntarily read any other book in my adult life.
Who is the blind man in the movie Saramago?
From the first Saramago drew me into a tense and wary scene. This man who never wore glasses and was in perfect health had stopped at a red light while driving, blinked, and suddenly was blind – seeing not a black void but a white impenetrable denseness.
Why does Saramago never use quotation marks?
Because the author never uses quotation marks in the running dialogue, the action seems more intense. The newly blind man’s thoughts are interspersed with his conversation with others – his rescuer, his wife, the doctor. Amazingly, this style never confuses the reader; rather magnifies the characters’ feelings and invites the reader into the story.
