Blindness

by

José Saramago

Blindness and Sight Symbol Analysis

Blindness and Sight Symbol Icon

The epidemic of literal blindness that afflicts the characters in the novel symbolizes humans’ metaphorical blindness to what is important in life. Saramago examines what this physical “white blindness” (in which people only see white light) does to his protagonists spiritually: for instance, after regaining his sight, the doctor thinks that perhaps the world is already populated by “blind people who can see, but do not see.” While the protagonists literally go from sight to blindness, spiritually and existentially they go from blindness to sight, as the familiar but meaningless world of discernible objects and other people gives way to a new world that “swallow[s] up rather than absorb[s], not just the colours [of things], but the very things and beings” themselves. In other words, amid their state of blindness, characters are better able to perceive the underlying essence and interconnectivity of different “things and beings” rather than being caught up in what sets these people and objects apart from one another.

Additionally, many of the protagonists see the blindness as a symptom of their own sense of moral responsibility: for instance the car-thief believes that going blind is his being punished for stealing the first blind man’s car, and the girl with the glasses—who is a prostitute by trade—wonders if her blindness constitutes a punishment “for her immorality.” In this way, the blindness epidemic is not just a plot device or a metaphor for the unforeseeable catastrophes that can strike humankind at anytime: it also represents contemporary society’s decadence—or its blindness to what is truly important for human beings—as well as people’s disorientation in a universe that neither provides them with clear answers the purpose of existence nor appears to consistently reward the morally good and punish the evil.

Blindness and Sight Quotes in Blindness

The Blindness quotes below all refer to the symbol of Blindness and Sight. 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:
Chapter 4 Quotes

When she rejoined her husband, she asked him, Can you imagine where they've brought us, No, she was about to add, To a mental asylum, but he anticipated her, You're not blind, I cannot allow you to stay here, Yes, you're right, I'm not blind, Then I'm going to ask them to take you home, to tell them that you told a lie in order to remain with me, There's no point, they cannot hear you through there, and even if they could, they would pay no attention, But you can see, For the moment, I shall almost certainly turn blind myself one of these days, or any minute now, Please, go home, Don't insist, besides, I'll bet the soldiers would not let me get as far as the stairs, I cannot force you, No, my love, you can't, I'm staying to help you and the others who may come here, but don't tell them I can see, What others, You surely don't think we shall be here on our own, This is madness, What did you expect, we're in a mental asylum.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker), The Government, The soldiers
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, The Mental Hospital
Page Number: 40
Explanation and Analysis:

But this blindness is so abnormal, so alien to scientific knowledge that it cannot last forever. And suppose we were to stay like this for the rest of our lives, Us, Everyone, That would be horrible, a world full of blind people, It doesn't bear thinking about.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The girl with the dark glasses (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 53
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 5 Quotes

We're so remote from the world that any day now, we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names, and besides, what use would names be to us, no dog recognises another dog or knows the others by the names they have been given, a dog is identified by its scent and that is how it identifies others, here we are like another breed of dogs, we know each other’s bark or speech, as for the rest, features, colour of eyes or hair, they are of no importance, it is as if they did not exist.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 57
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

The soldiers would have liked to aim their weapons and, without compunction, shoot down those imbeciles moving before their eyes like lame crabs, waving their unsteady pincers in search of their missing leg. They knew what had been said in the barracks that morning by the regimental commander, that the problem of these blind internees could be resolved only by physically wiping out the lot of them, those already there and those still to come, without any phoney humanitarian considerations, his very words, just as one amputates a gangrenous limb in order to save the rest of the body, The rabies of a dead dog, he said, to illustrate the point, is cured by nature. For some of the soldiers, less sensitive to the beauties of figurative language, it was difficult to understand what a dog with rabies had to do with the blind, but the word of a regimental commander, once again figuratively speaking, is worth its weight in gold, no man rises to so high a rank in the army without being right in everything he thinks, says and does.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The soldiers
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, Guns, The Mental Hospital
Page Number: 101
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

Arriving at this point, the blind accountant, tired of describing so much misery and sorrow, would let his metal punch fall to the table, he would search with a trembling hand for the piece of stale bread he had put to one side while he fulfilled his obligations as chronicler of the end of time, but he would not find it, because another blind man, whose sense of smell had become very keen out of dire necessity, had filched it. Then, renouncing his fraternal gesture, the altruistic impulse that had brought him rushing to this side, the blind accountant would decide that the best course of action, if he was still in time, was to return to the third ward on the left, there, at least, however much the injustices of those hoodlums stirred up in him feelings of honest indignation, he would not go hungry.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist, The blind accountant
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, The Mental Hospital
Page Number: 162
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 13 Quotes

Say to a blind man, you're free, open the door that was separating him from the world, Go, you are free, we tell him once more, and he does not go, he has remained motionless there in the middle of the road, he and the others, they are terrified, they do not know where to go, the fact is that there is no comparison between living in a rational labyrinth, which is, by definition, a mental asylum and venturing forth, without a guiding hand or a dog-leash, into the demented labyrinth of the city where memory will serve no purpose, for it will merely be able to recall the images of places but not the paths whereby we might get there. Standing in front of the building which is already ablaze from end to end, the blind inmates can feel the living waves of heat from the fire on their faces, they receive them as something which in a way protects them, just as the walls did before, prison and refuge at once. They stay together, pressed up against each other, like a flock, no one there wants to be the lost sheep, for they know that no shepherd will come looking for them.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The doctor’s wife, The soldiers
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, The Mental Hospital
Page Number: 217
Explanation and Analysis:

She now closed [the door] carefully behind her only to find herself plunged into total darkness, as sightless as those blind people out there, the only difference was in the colour, if black and white can, strictly speaking, be thought of as colours. […] I'm going mad, she thought, and with good reason, making this descent into a dark pit, without light or any hope of seeing any, how far would it be, these underground stores are usually never very deep, first flight of steps, Now I know what it means to be blind, second flight of steps, I'm going to scream, I'm going to scream, third set of steps, the darkness is like a thick paste that sticks to her face, her eyes transformed into balls of pitch.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The narrator (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 229
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:

Today is today, tomorrow will bring what tomorrow brings, today is my responsibility, not tomorrow if I should turn blind, What do you mean by responsibility, The responsibility of having my eyesight when others have lost theirs, You cannot hope to guide or provide food for all the blind people in this world, I ought to, But you cannot, I shall do whatever I can to help, Of course you will, had it nor been for you I might not be alive today, And I don't want you to die now.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The girl with the dark glasses (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 252
Explanation and Analysis:

All stories are like those about the creation of the universe, no one was there, no one witnessed anything, yet everyone knows what happened.

Related Characters: The narrator (speaker), The old man with the black eyepatch
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, Cars
Page Number: 265
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:
Chapter 16 Quotes

On their way to the home of the girl with dark glasses, they crossed a large square with groups of blind people who were listening to speeches from other blind people, at first sight, neither one nor the other group seemed blind, the speakers turned their heads excitedly towards their listeners, the listeners turned their heads attentively to the speakers. They were proclaiming the end of the world, redemption through penitence, the visions of the seventh day, the advent of the angel, cosmic collisions, the death of the sun, the tribal spirit, the sap of the mandrake, tiger ointment, the virtue of the sign, the discipline of the wind, the perfume of the moon, the revindication of darkness, the power of exorcism, the sign of the heel, the crucifixion of the rose, the purity of the lymph, the blood of the black cat, the sleep of the shadow the rising of the seas, the logic of anthropophagy, painless castration, divine tattoos, voluntary blindness, convex thoughts, or concave, or horizontal or vertical, or sloping, or concentrated, or dispersed, or fleeting, the weakening of the vocal cords, the death of the word, Here nobody is speaking of organisation, said the doctor's wife, Perhaps organisation is in another square, he replied. They continued on their way.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker), The narrator (speaker), The girl with the dark glasses
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 298
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

Most likely other blind people closed it, converting the basement into an enormous tomb and I am to blame for what happened, when I came running out of there with my bags, they must have suspected that it was food and went in search of it, In a way, everything we eat has been stolen from the mouths of others and if we rob them of too much we are responsible for their death, one way or another we are all murderers.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker), The dog of tears
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight, The Mental Hospital
Page Number: 314
Explanation and Analysis:

If the priest covered the eyes of the images, That s just my idea, It's the only hypothesis that makes any sense, it's the only one that can lend some dignity to our suffering […] that priest must have committed the worst sacrilege of all times and all religions, the fairest and most radically human, coming here to declare that, ultimately, God does not deserve to see.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 317-8
Explanation and Analysis:

Why did we become blind, I don’t know, perhaps one day we'll find out, Do you want me to tell you what I think, Yes, do, I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see.

Related Characters: The doctor’s wife (speaker), The doctor / ophthalmologist (speaker)
Related Symbols: Blindness and Sight
Page Number: 326
Explanation and Analysis:
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Blindness and Sight Symbol Timeline in Blindness

The timeline below shows where the symbol Blindness and Sight appears in Blindness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 1
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...on the [car’s] closed windows.” The man driving the car begins shouting repeatedly, “I am blind.” Although the blind man’s “eyes seem healthy,” his face shows “that he is distraught with... (full context)
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Near the blind man’s house, the other man can only find parking on a street so narrow that... (full context)
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The blind man knows he is at home because of “the smell, the atmosphere, [and] the silence.”... (full context)
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The blind man’s wife awakens him by asking, “what are you doing there?” while she cleans up... (full context)
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After disinfecting and wrapping the blind man’s finger, the blind man’s wife takes him downstairs to find the car. The blind... (full context)
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Inside the doctor’s office, the blind man explains what has happened. He has no personal or family history of eye problems,... (full context)
Chapter 2
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The narrator notes that the thief who stole the first blind man’s car offered to help him out of genuine selflessness—he’s not a “hardened criminal[].” He... (full context)
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...doctor treats an old man with an eyepatch for cataracts, then starts going over the blind man’s file repeatedly and calls a colleague to discuss the case. The man’s blindness cannot... (full context)
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...sex with the man and feels intense pleasure. Afterward, she realizes that she has gone blind. (full context)
Chapter 3
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...The officer makes her pay for her taxi home, and the girl wonders if her blindness is punishment “for her immorality.” Meanwhile, the ophthalmologist does not give in  to despair—rather, he... (full context)
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...it to the bathroom, his wife returns, and the doctor reveals that he’s having trouble seeing. His wife looks into his eyes but doesn’t observe anything wrong. The doctor replies that... (full context)
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...him everything. The hospital director is surprised but uncertain: they have no proof that the blindness is contagious, and he warns the doctor against making assumptions. But after a half hour,... (full context)
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...a few minutes, the hospital director calls again to report two more cases of sudden blindness: the car thief and the girl with the glasses. Finally, that evening, the Ministry calls... (full context)
Chapter 4
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...that all the patients be quarantined until the Government figures out what has caused their blindness. Of the city’s vacant buildings, the minister chooses an empty mental hospital as the quarantine... (full context)
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That same day, the Commission of Logistics and Security sends all the blind patients, their families, and their colleagues to the hospital. The doctor and the doctor’s wife... (full context)
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...protect the population from the disease that the Government is calling “the white sickness.” The blind people’s participation in the quarantine is “an act of solidarity with the rest of the... (full context)
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...girl recognizes the doctor, who in turn recognizes the girl, the boy, and “the first blind man.” The doctor asks the car-thief about his identity, but the man simply says that... (full context)
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The car-thief yells out that the first blind man is “to blame for our misfortune.” But the first blind man reveals that the... (full context)
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...the doctor’s wife and the girl wait outside and tell each other how they went blind. The girl says that the doctor’s wife is lucky to be able to stay with... (full context)
Chapter 5
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...afraid to open her eyes. When she finally does, she discovers that she can still see, and she accidentally says so out loud. Fortunately, she sees that everyone is still asleep.... (full context)
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Outside, “angry voices” signal the arrival of more blind patients. When they enter, the doctor explains that there are six patients already in the... (full context)
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The first blind man tells the first blind man’s wife that the car-thief is there, and she initially... (full context)
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At the pharmacist’s assistant’s behest, the doctor explains what he researched just before going blind. After he finishes, the taxi-driver chimes in with his opinion: “the channels that go from... (full context)
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...and the rude policeman who took the girl home. Then, a huge crowd of uproarious blind people stumbles into the ward. The people who cannot find a bed leave for another... (full context)
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...to the hospital’s front door, where he reflects on the morality of stealing the first blind man’s car. He falls down the hospital’s front steps and, once he overcomes the extreme... (full context)
Chapter 6
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In the morning, the blind have to bury the car-thief’s body in the courtyard. Only the doctor’s wife sees the... (full context)
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...therefore the soldiers. The narrator reveals that this sergeant is new: the first one went blind and is now in the army’s quarantine zone. This sergeant promises to ask for a... (full context)
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...the front door. The doctor’s wife goes to retrieve it—at first she pretends to be blind, but eventually she just grabs the spade and walks straight back to the front door,... (full context)
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The blind dig a shallow grave in the courtyard’s firm soil and toss the car-thief’s body inside.... (full context)
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...come inside and drop the food containers in the hallway, but they’re terrified when they see the blind patients waiting nearby. Two of the soldiers “react[] admirably” by firing indiscriminately at... (full context)
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During the shooting, the blind internees are frightened because they assume that the Government has decided to kill them. When... (full context)
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The blind assemble to decide whether to first eat or bury the nine dead, whose identities they... (full context)
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...wife helps him clean up while everyone else sleeps. She wonders when she will go blind and why she has been spared so far. She and the doctor hear moaning and... (full context)
Chapter 7
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The blind wake up well before dawn, whether because they are hungry, because their internal clocks are... (full context)
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...“the voice” of the Government announces that the food is being delivered, but that the blind must stay away from the gate or be shot. The internees are afraid, but the... (full context)
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One blind man is clinging to the rope out of fear, but he leaves it to join... (full context)
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The narrator comments that the ward is like a  hotel—surely it is better than being blind in the outside world. The narrator even praises the authorities for bringing the blind people... (full context)
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...are headed into the hospital. There is not enough space, but rather than massacring the blind, they decide to open up all the empty wards to them. The soldiers direct the... (full context)
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...way to the empty ward in the right-hand wing of the hospital, with the other blind people. But space soon runs out, so the new internees spread out in search of... (full context)
Chapter 8
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...eye patch reveals that the city is in a state of “panic” because of the blindness epidemic. All the other ward members who were in the doctor’s office also introduce themselves... (full context)
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...eyepatch’s original story, which lacks credibility. After the initial outbreak, the Government announced that the blindness was temporary, just an unfortunate coincidence, and the public even thought that the blind would... (full context)
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...“to pass the time”: each patient should share what they saw just as they went blind. The old man remembers examining his “blind eye” when he lost sight in the other... (full context)
Chapter 9
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...resolve this nightmare, but the doctor warns that she cannot reveal that she can still see—it would be too dangerous. His wife insists that she has to help, but he warns... (full context)
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In the morning, the doctor’s wife wonders whether she should admit that she has been seeing all along or pretend that she’s regained her sight after being blind like everyone else.... (full context)
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...beds. The armed thieves stand in a circle around the food, beating away the other blind people who are protesting loudly and trying to get to the food. The soldiers ignore... (full context)
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The doctor and the first blind man collect everyone’s things and then go to ward where the thieves are staying. On... (full context)
Chapter 10
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...process. That same night, the announcer on this program screams out that he has gone blind. Knowing that the show’s whole crew will follow and the program will never return, the... (full context)
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...doctor’s comment that one of the thugs might be a spy who is actually not blind. Of course, the doctor’s wife can still see, but she has seen such “horror” that... (full context)
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The doctor’s wife sneaks out to the hallway without alerting anyone. She sees some internees sleeping on the hallway’s floor: they are the people couldn’t find a bed... (full context)
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...wife approaches him and then looks over his shoulder into the ward, but the man seems to sense her presence and starts looking for an intruder. Eventually, he gives up, and... (full context)
Chapter 11
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...have become sick, the flu has spread fast, and nobody has any medicine—including the two blind people with cancer. The narrator continues that the accountant would give up, realize that someone... (full context)
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...sometimes “words serve no purpose.” Then, the doctor’s wife reveals to the girl: “I can see.” The girl notes that she has suspected this from the beginning, and they whisper back... (full context)
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...them, but instead they continue towards the thugs’ ward. On the way, the doctor’s wife sees the other wards’ women “curled up in their beds like animals,” traumatized to the point... (full context)
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...while still leaving her alive” throughout the night. As they pass the front door and see the soldiers preparing to give out the food boxes, one of the women collapses. In... (full context)
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...one another, and then she fills them with water and runs out before the confused blind internees all around her catch up. In the ward, the doctor’s wife washes the dead... (full context)
Chapter 12
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...doctor’s wife waits for the perfect opportunity and then drives the scissors “deep into the blind man’s throat.” As he starts screaming and his blood starts spurting everywhere, he also ejaculates,... (full context)
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The other blind thugs realize that something is wrong and head toward the leader. The blind accountant reaches... (full context)
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...claiming that they remember her voice and will kill her, and that he is not blind like the others. Then, he declares that the thugs will withhold food from everyone else,... (full context)
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...the daily instructions—this has only happened occasionally as of late, which has annoyed all the blind people who relied on it to help keep count of the days. Suddenly, after the... (full context)
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...with beds. The man with the eyepatch starts planning an attack. Although some of the blind resist the idea, 17 of them agree to go—including the doctor and his wife, the... (full context)
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The blind advance on the thugs’ lair. One of them drops their metal bar, which makes “a... (full context)
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...dead, and they drag them out. The accountant fires a shot but misses, and the blind carry the corpses out to the main hallway. (full context)
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In the moonlight, the doctor’s wife can see that the dead are the pharmacist’s assistant and “the fellow who said the blind hoodlums... (full context)
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Meanwhile, one blind woman finds a cigarette lighter that she had packed before coming to the hospital; she... (full context)
Chapter 13
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...difference between “rational labyrinth” of the hospital and “the demented labyrinth of the city.” The blind huddle together outside the hospital, unsure of where to go and afraid to move, hoping... (full context)
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...not bring their food. Led by the doctor’s wife, “the woman with eyes that can see,” some of the blind muster up their last strength and head for the city center.... (full context)
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...and explains her group’s predicament. But the man reveals that the entire country has gone blind and that anyone who can still see keeps it a secret. In order not to... (full context)
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...have to go to find food, the doctor’s wife notes the address. All around, she sees people walking up and down the street clinging to walls, sniffing around in search of... (full context)
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...which is just as empty as the rest of the food stores. Inside, groups of blind people are crawling around, looking for food. One man gets a piece of glass stuck... (full context)
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...the pitch-black basement and begins to panic: in the dark, she finally feels like she’s blind. Three flights down, she nearly faints out of terror and starts crawling around, looking for... (full context)
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The doctor’s wife debates whether to tell the other blind people in the supermarket about the food downstairs, but she decides against it and justifies... (full context)
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...embraces one of the dogs, which licks up her tears, and then looks up and sees “a great map before her.” Its destiny must have been to appear, the narrator says,... (full context)
Chapter 14
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...the doctor’s wife is well-fed and dressed stylishly—most of them wear functional rubber boots. The blind people who surround them wander around with no sense of purpose or direction, constantly searching... (full context)
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...says that she does not care: she thinks that everyone is already dead because they’re blind or blind because they’re dead. But the doctor’s wife remarks that she can still see,... (full context)
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...wife declares that the group must come up with a plan. The whole city is blind, there are no public services or supplies, and nobody knows if there is a government... (full context)
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...kills one of her hens. She also hears the doctor’s wife say that she “can’t see a thing” on the way out—this raises the old woman’s suspicions, but she later decides... (full context)
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...leave, the old woman cries because her life is lonely and meaningless. Throughout the city, blind people are still out looking for food, mostly unsuccessfully. They cannot cook anything, and dogs... (full context)
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...group passes through a wide street with tall buildings and expensive cars that now house blind people. There is even a limousine that took a bank chairman to an emergency meeting... (full context)
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...The doctor’s wife is not nostalgic, but she rather feels disappointed by the filth she sees all around. The group enters the building where the doctor and his wife live and... (full context)
Chapter 15
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...so that they can start to familiarize themselves with their surroundings in case she goes blind too. They’ll use a bucket out on the balcony as their bathroom, which is unpleasant... (full context)
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...the doctor’s wife helps the boy feel the oil lamp, which “one day [he] will see.” The boy asks for water, which the doctor’s wife fetches from the back part of... (full context)
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The boy eats the remaining food, then the doctor’s wife leads the first blind man and his wife out to search for more. They pass piles of trash, horrible... (full context)
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When the first blind man, his wife, and the doctor’s wife reach the building, they make their way upstairs... (full context)
Chapter 16
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...on the way back. The doctor’s wife laments the city’s disorder and wonders if the blind could form governments and “begin to have eyes.” The group debates whether blindness will kill... (full context)
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...leaving the doctor’s office, the group passes a square where a crowd listens to a blind preacher talk about redemption, the apocalypse, and various mystical powers, signs, and practices. The doctor’s... (full context)
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While the doctor’s wife digs, blind people assemble on the nearby balconies. The doctor’s wife instinctively yells out to them, “She... (full context)
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...with the glasses debate whether it is still worth hoping that they will get their sight back someday, and their conversation quickly becomes tense because of their ongoing romance. The old... (full context)
Chapter 17
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...dog of tears howls at a corpse. The group again passes a crowd listening to blind speakers in a square, but this time, they are talking about “great organized systems” like... (full context)
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...away. The doctor’s wife comments that nobody is entering or exiting and worries that the blind might have already cleared out the storeroom. A group of blind people next to her... (full context)
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...basement. On the staircase, the rotting stench makes the doctor’s wife vomit, and then she sees two low, flickering lights. The doctor rushes over to comfort her and lead her back... (full context)
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...enters, nonetheless. The church is completely packed with people, but the dog growls at some blind people so that they make space for the doctor’s wife, who lays down and loses... (full context)
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When she comes to her senses, the doctor’s wife sees that the eyes of all the images in the church are covered with paint or... (full context)
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The blind people surrounding the doctor’s wife and the doctor begin to ask about the covered images... (full context)
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...shocked and dismayed to hear about their day, but they have different feelings about the blinded images in the church: the first blind man and his wife consider it inexcusably disrespectful, ... (full context)
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While the doctor’s wife reads, some of the others drift off to sleep. The first blind man has his eyes closed, but he’s preoccupied with the plan to move to the... (full context)
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The group starts chattering anxiously, and the first blind man and his wife plan their return home. A few hours later, the girl with... (full context)