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Amid the blindness epidemic in the novel, guns symbolize the idea that a person or governing body’s capacity for violence determines how much power they hold. In the quarantined hospital, the blind internees quickly learn that none of the rules that used to govern society apply anymore: there are no rights nor authorities to appeal to, and food, plumbing, and medicine are no longer guaranteed. From the moment the hospital’s doors are sealed, force becomes the only law: soldiers rule over the blind because they are armed and unafraid to kill, and later, the thugs take power because they have a gun. The thug leader’s gun not only symbolizes his power: it also is his power, because it is what allows him to force everyone else into compliance (either as a member of his team or a target to exploit). Whenever he shoots, people flee in terror, unable to see where the bullet is headed. After the doctor’s wife kills the thug leader, the blind accountant takes the gun in order to take power, although his hold on it is insecure.
Saramago’s message is clear: all of society is ultimately based on this capacity for violence, which governments usually reserve for themselves and promise to only use according to the laws they set out. But such promises are unenforceable: governments can wield their power however they like, just as in this novel the Government approves of the Ministry of Health rounding up the blind and the soldiers massacring them. Although people get used to the false sense of security that living in a democratic society gives them, crises like the white blindness epidemic are a stark reminder that all power is based on the capacity to cause physical harm or enlist others to cause that harm on one’s behalf, and that all governments are always capable of committing the kind of authoritarian atrocities that people generally see as confined to history.
Guns Quotes in Blindness
The Blindness quotes below all refer to the symbol of Guns. 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 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:
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Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Blindness LitChart as a printable PDF.
Guns Symbol Timeline in Blindness
The timeline below shows where the symbol Guns appears in Blindness. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 5
...put up as a handrail. The soldier who is stationed at the gate fires his gun as soon as he notices the car-thief. By the time the other soldiers arrive, the...
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Chapter 6
...When they reach the front door, the soldier on duty yells and fires a warning gunshot into the air. The three patients return inside, and then the doctor’s wife comes to...
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...future, the sergeant says, the army will simply leave the food outside the hospital and shoot anyone who gets too close to them.
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During the shooting, the blind internees are frightened because they assume that the Government has decided to kill...
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Chapter 7
...some of the patients wait in the hallway and speculate about whether they might get shot. The other ward’s men still haven’t buried their dead but insist that they won’t do...
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...is being delivered, but that the blind must stay away from the gate or be shot. The internees are afraid, but the voice tells them they have three minutes. They cautiously...
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...steps, and the soldiers aim their rifles at him. The sergeant tells them not to shoot, but one of the soldiers urges the man to continue toward him—the man takes three...
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There is gunfire outside: the sergeant is trying to frighten the roughly 200 newcomers who are headed into...
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Chapter 9
...get beaten to the ground, and then the leader of the thieves pulls out a gun and fires into the ceiling. He declares that his gang is taking charge of the...
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...how many of these “thugs” there are and realizes that, since the leader with the gun has asked someone to “take note,” this means that someone among them is able to...
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...not enough, but the thug threatens to take some of it away and sticks his gun in the doctor’s neck. The doctor and the first blind man reluctantly take the three...
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Chapter 11
...a collective uprising, but they give up when they remember that the thieves have a gun. They eventually decide to send a larger group to retrieve the food, but the thieves...
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...form a line behind the doctor’s wife. They consider going outside and letting the soldiers shoot them, but instead they continue towards the thugs’ ward. On the way, the doctor’s wife...
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The women enter the thugs’ ward, where the men surround them and their gun-toting leader starts to fondle them, one after another. He chooses to stay with the doctor’s...
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Chapter 12
...head toward the leader. The blind accountant reaches the leader’s body first and grabs the gun out of the man’s pocket. Meanwhile, the women try to flee to the hallway, but...
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...up—in fact, her ward will take charge of the food now. The accountant fires a gunshot at the doctor’s wife but misses, after which the doctor’s wife heads down the hallway...
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...soldiers aren’t responsible—there is simply no food to give the internees, who will still be shot if they come outside. Back inside, the internees debate what to do—they know they will...
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...the beds but make no progress. Everyone starts screaming, and then the accountant fires three gunshots from inside, which strike two of the inmates.
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...the two fallen men are dead, and they drag them out. The accountant fires a shot but misses, and the blind carry the corpses out to the main hallway.
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...been some dissent among the thugs since their leader was killed. The accountant has the gun, but not people’s respect, and “he loses a little more authority” every time he shoots.
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...the dead are the pharmacist’s assistant and “the fellow who said the blind hoodlums would shoot at random.” After announcing their identities, she also reveals that she is not blind—some people...
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...posed by the soldiers. As the man with the eyepatch puts it, “Better to be shot than to be burnt to death.”
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