Blindness

by

José Saramago

The first blind man is one of the novel’s protagonists; the highly contagious “white blindness” epidemic begins with the him when he’s mysteriously struck blind while waiting at a traffic light in his car. Virtually everyone with whom the man comes into contact also starts suddenly going blind—this includes the car-thief (who takes the first blind man home and then steals his car), the first blind man’s wife, the taxi-driver who brings him and his wife to the doctor, and the doctor himself. It also includes the various patients in the doctor’s office: the old man with the eyepatch, the boy with the squint, and the girl with dark glasses. Since they are among the first to go blind, they all end up together in the quarantine zone, an abandoned mental hospital. Although the first blind man is initially furious with the man who stole his car, they eventually make peace. While the first blind man occasionally helps participate in the group’s efforts to secure food, fight off the thugs, and so on, he’s generally pessimistic, adversarial, and bitter. He also appears to have a poor relationship with his wife: they seldom speak in the ward, unlike the doctor and the doctor’s wife. While the first blind man protests loudly when his wife agrees to go visit the thugs who plan to rape her and the other women, it seems that he’s more concerned with maintaining his own sense of masculine honor than with his wife’s wellbeing. After leaving the quarantine hospital, he goes with his wife and the doctor’s wife to his old house, where the writer has moved in. Although the cause of the first blind man’s affliction or the mechanism of its transmission is never revealed, he is also the first to regain his sight at the end of the book.

The first blind man Quotes in Blindness

The Blindness quotes below are all either spoken by The first blind man or refer to The first blind man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Existence, Uncertainty, and Autonomy Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The amber light came on. Two of the cars ahead accelerated before the red light appeared. At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called. The motorists kept an impatient foot on the clutch, leaving their cars at the ready, advancing, retreating like nervous horses that can sense the whiplash about to be inflicted. The pedestrians have just finished crossing but the sign allowing the cars to go will be delayed for some seconds, some people maintain that this delay, while apparently so insignificant, has only to be multiplied by the thousands of traffic lights that exist in the city and by the successive changes of their three colours to produce one of the most serious causes of traffic jams or bottlenecks, to use the more current term.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The first blind man
Related Symbols: Cars, Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

The blind man raised his hands to his eyes and gestured, Nothing, it’s as if I were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea. But blindness isn't like that, said the other fellow, they say that blindness is black, Well I see everything white.

Related Characters: The first blind man (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

Let’s wait and see, let's wait and see, you mustn't despair.

Related Characters: The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker), The first blind man
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected, is something that exists and has always existed, it was not an invention of the philosophers of the Quaternary when the soul was little more than a muddled proposition. With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny. Add to this general observation, the particular circumstance that in simple spirits, the remorse caused by committing some evil act often becomes confused with ancestral fears of every kind, and the result will be that the punishment of the prevaricator ends up being, without mercy or pity, twice what he deserved.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The first blind man, The car-thief
Related Symbols: Cars
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

What's the world like these days, the old man with the black eyepatch had asked, and the doctor’s wife replied, There's no difference between inside and outside, between here and there, between the many and the few, between what we're living through and what we shall have to live through, And the people, how are they coping, asked the girl with dark glasses, They go around like ghosts, this must be what it means to be a ghost, being certain that life exists, because your four senses say so, and yet unable to see it, Are there lots of cars out there, asked the first blind man, who was unable to forget that his had been stolen, It s like a cemetery. Neither the doctor nor the wife of the first blind man asked any questions, what was the point, when the replies were such as these.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The girl with the dark glasses (speaker), The old man with the black eyepatch (speaker), The first blind man (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist, The first blind man’s wife, The little boy with the squint
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, Cars
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

I am a writer, we are supposed to know such things. The first blind man felt flattered, imagine, a writer living in my flat, then a doubt rose in him, was it good manners to ask him his name, he might even have heard of his name, it was even possible that he had read him, he was still hesitating between curiosity and discretion, when his wife put the question directly, What is your name, Blind people do nor need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters, But you wrote books and those books carry your name, said the doctor's wife, Now nobody can read them, it is as if they did not exist.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The first blind man (speaker), The first blind man’s wife (speaker), The writer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 290
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Blindness LitChart as a printable PDF.
Blindness PDF

The first blind man Quotes in Blindness

The Blindness quotes below are all either spoken by The first blind man or refer to The first blind man. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Existence, Uncertainty, and Autonomy Theme Icon
).
Chapter 1 Quotes

The amber light came on. Two of the cars ahead accelerated before the red light appeared. At the pedestrian crossing the sign of a green man lit up. The people who were waiting began to cross the road, stepping on the white stripes painted on the black surface of the asphalt, there is nothing less like a zebra, however, that is what it is called. The motorists kept an impatient foot on the clutch, leaving their cars at the ready, advancing, retreating like nervous horses that can sense the whiplash about to be inflicted. The pedestrians have just finished crossing but the sign allowing the cars to go will be delayed for some seconds, some people maintain that this delay, while apparently so insignificant, has only to be multiplied by the thousands of traffic lights that exist in the city and by the successive changes of their three colours to produce one of the most serious causes of traffic jams or bottlenecks, to use the more current term.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The first blind man
Related Symbols: Cars, Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 1
Explanation and Analysis:

The blind man raised his hands to his eyes and gestured, Nothing, it’s as if I were caught in a mist or had fallen into a milky sea. But blindness isn't like that, said the other fellow, they say that blindness is black, Well I see everything white.

Related Characters: The first blind man (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 3
Explanation and Analysis:

Let’s wait and see, let's wait and see, you mustn't despair.

Related Characters: The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker), The first blind man
Page Number: 15
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 2 Quotes

The moral conscience that so many thoughtless people have offended against and many more have rejected, is something that exists and has always existed, it was not an invention of the philosophers of the Quaternary when the soul was little more than a muddled proposition. With the passing of time, as well as the social evolution and genetic exchange, we ended up putting our conscience in the colour of blood and in the salt of tears, and, as if that were not enough, we made our eyes into a kind of mirror turned inwards, with the result that they often show without reserve what we are verbally trying to deny. Add to this general observation, the particular circumstance that in simple spirits, the remorse caused by committing some evil act often becomes confused with ancestral fears of every kind, and the result will be that the punishment of the prevaricator ends up being, without mercy or pity, twice what he deserved.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The first blind man, The car-thief
Related Symbols: Cars
Page Number: 17
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

What's the world like these days, the old man with the black eyepatch had asked, and the doctor’s wife replied, There's no difference between inside and outside, between here and there, between the many and the few, between what we're living through and what we shall have to live through, And the people, how are they coping, asked the girl with dark glasses, They go around like ghosts, this must be what it means to be a ghost, being certain that life exists, because your four senses say so, and yet unable to see it, Are there lots of cars out there, asked the first blind man, who was unable to forget that his had been stolen, It s like a cemetery. Neither the doctor nor the wife of the first blind man asked any questions, what was the point, when the replies were such as these.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The girl with the dark glasses (speaker), The old man with the black eyepatch (speaker), The first blind man (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist, The first blind man’s wife, The little boy with the squint
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, Cars
Page Number: 242
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 15 Quotes

I am a writer, we are supposed to know such things. The first blind man felt flattered, imagine, a writer living in my flat, then a doubt rose in him, was it good manners to ask him his name, he might even have heard of his name, it was even possible that he had read him, he was still hesitating between curiosity and discretion, when his wife put the question directly, What is your name, Blind people do nor need a name, I am my voice, nothing else matters, But you wrote books and those books carry your name, said the doctor's wife, Now nobody can read them, it is as if they did not exist.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The first blind man (speaker), The first blind man’s wife (speaker), The writer (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 290
Explanation and Analysis: