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The girl with the dark glasses
The old man with the eye patch is one of the novel’s protagonists; he’s a patient of the doctor. The old man has cataracts and has already gone blind in one eye (which he covers with a black eyepatch) prior to the blindness epidemic. After getting struck by the “white sickness,” the man with the eyepatch ends up quarantined in the hospital, but he’s the last of the central characters to arrive. Unlike the other blind internees, the old man with the eyepatch remains relatively calm in the hospital, where he informs everyone else about the “panic” that has taken hold of the city and recounts the news he hears on the radio to them. During his time in the hospital, he develops a romantic and sexual connection with the girl with the dark glasses, although the narrator cannot explain what attracts them to each other. Valiant and wise, the old man supports the doctor’s wife when she begins to doubt whether she was right to kill the leader of the thugs, and he leads the protagonists’ final attack on the thugs before the hospital burns down. After the fire, he reveals that he has no home to go back to, unlike the rest of the characters—he lived alone in a rented room, and the people he met in the hospital have essentially become his family. He selflessly worries that he will eventually turn into “an impossible burden” on the group’s resources, but he remains an integral part of the group and maintains his relationship with the girl with dark glasses through to the end of the book.
The old man with the black eyepatch Quotes in Blindness
The Blindness quotes below are all either spoken by The old man with the black eyepatch or refer to The old man with the black eyepatch. 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:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
From this point onwards, apart from a few inevitable comments, the story of the old man with the black eyepatch will no longer be followed to the letter, being replaced by a reorganised version of his discourse, re-evaluated in the light of a correct and more appropriate vocabulary. The reason for this previously unforeseen change is the rather formal controlled language, used by the narrator, which almost disqualifies him as a complementary reporter, however important he may be, because without him we would have no way of knowing what happened in the outside world, as a complementary reporter, as we were saying, of these extraordinary events, when as we know the description of any facts can only gain with the rigour and suitability of the terms used.
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Chapter 12
Quotes
All I know is that we would never have found ourselves in this situation if their leader hadn't been killed, what did it matter if the women had to go there twice a month to give these men what nature gave them to give, I ask myself. Some found this amusing, some forced a smile, those inclined to protest were deterred by an empty stomach, and the same man insisted, What I'd like to know is who did the stabbing, The women who were there at the time swear it was none of them, What we ought to do is to take the law into our own hands and bring the culprit to justice, If we knew who was responsible, we'd say this is the person you're looking for, now give us the food, If we knew who was responsible.
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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.
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All stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.
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The old man with the black eyepatch Quotes in Blindness
The Blindness quotes below are all either spoken by The old man with the black eyepatch or refer to The old man with the black eyepatch. 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:
).
Chapter 8
Quotes
From this point onwards, apart from a few inevitable comments, the story of the old man with the black eyepatch will no longer be followed to the letter, being replaced by a reorganised version of his discourse, re-evaluated in the light of a correct and more appropriate vocabulary. The reason for this previously unforeseen change is the rather formal controlled language, used by the narrator, which almost disqualifies him as a complementary reporter, however important he may be, because without him we would have no way of knowing what happened in the outside world, as a complementary reporter, as we were saying, of these extraordinary events, when as we know the description of any facts can only gain with the rigour and suitability of the terms used.
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Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12
Quotes
All I know is that we would never have found ourselves in this situation if their leader hadn't been killed, what did it matter if the women had to go there twice a month to give these men what nature gave them to give, I ask myself. Some found this amusing, some forced a smile, those inclined to protest were deterred by an empty stomach, and the same man insisted, What I'd like to know is who did the stabbing, The women who were there at the time swear it was none of them, What we ought to do is to take the law into our own hands and bring the culprit to justice, If we knew who was responsible, we'd say this is the person you're looking for, now give us the food, If we knew who was responsible.
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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.
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All stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.
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Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
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