Where does Blindness take place.. and some filler

For some reason that I cannot explain, I have always thought that Blindness takes place somewhere in the southern cone of South America. However there is little textual evidence to suggest this, or any at all for that matter. But something about the feel of the world, a sort of feeling of being in a developed country, but torwards the lower end of one in wealth, with a sort of uncaring bureaucracy, (which is not something that I really associate with the Southern Cone Augustin Pinochet notwithstanding) It could be because of the influence of The Country of the Blind,  set in the Andes, another book written about in another blog post, hugely influential for me, as far as short stories go. So it is possible that I now just associate South America with the blind, with blindness. I decided in the end that nothing could be done to find where it takes place, and it does not matter, it could have happened in any industrialized country, it could have happened anywhere, when I noticed a strange turn of phrase, the use of the word "tu."  The word tu is used in both Spanish and Portuguese, though in the context: "You simply must call me "tu," Oh no I couldn't, I simply could not do that. " As far as I can tell the Spanish tu has little meaning beyond the word for you, the Portuguese tu, is a formal you similar to the Sie form in german, where it is only used to people that are not well known as a mark of politeness. The context suggests a Portuguese speaking language country, though seeing as the author was Portuguese that proves nothing, and in the end, the location does not matter so much as the ideas of it.

Cliches

“The cold dawn air cooled his face. How well one breathes out here, he thought to himself. He had the impression that his leg was less painful, but this did not suprise him, some-time before, and more than once, the same thing had happened. He was now outside the main door, he would soon be at the steps, That is going to be the most awkward bit, he thought. “(pg 73)

To this section, I will preface that it is not that I faulted the book for containing cliches, or a deus ex machina ending. I think that even if they were cliches, or a deus ex machina ending, the novel used these tropes well, and the overall work was not damaged by them, that being said however there was an instance where the cliche was very obvious, and greatly annoyed me, the death of the Thief. It makes liberal use of the "retirony" trope, in which the character is making plans for his future without knowing that he will never live through them. It uses the usual trope of "everything is so beautiful.. it does not hurt anymore." With the thief reflecting on a pleasant thing, then noting how his limbs do not hurt anymore, then mentioning how much he hopes he will get help, right after the end of the quote, he was marked for death, having fulfilled every trope of the sympathetic character  death that i have heard. At the very least it did not have the "sudden sharp pain" part of the sympathetic character death  Point of view cliche box. All this being said, I still liked the scene, I just thought it was to many cliches in one paragraph.

Describing Sight in a book about the Blind

“... the resistance of the contaminated broken, many of them no longer contaminated, others running like madmen, were still trying to escape their black destiny. They ran in vain, one after another they were struck with blindness, their eyes suddenly drowned in that hideous white tide inuading the corridors, the wards, their entire space.” (pg 112)

It is the imagery of Blindness, and not so much the characters, that pushes the story along. The imagery is vivid, ironic considering the subject material:  an epidemic of the blind. While the characters sort of stumble through the story, with a few exceptions, it is the feel and image of the dark (pun not intended) world of Blindness that is the stories strongest point.

The imagery of Blindness is aided by its writing. Long, run on sentences, and no quotations help the text, giving it a sort of almost-claustrophobia. To me, this really helped me put myself in that world. In the writing seems to be  in a sort of matter of fact, on the run writing style, as if Saramago was just describing the story as he saw it, running on in the sentences as if he is in a rush to get information on the page. (something he and I seem to share in our writing styles, he does it better) The matter of fact, out-of breath, fast writing style

The imagery is vivid in part because it does not hold back very much. It describes the disturbing happenings of the novel in great detail,. A case in point, the fire set by a woman to kill her rapers, and the descriptions of the sounds made: “the cries of rage and fear, the howls of pain and agony, there they have been mentioned, note in any case that they will die away, the woman with the cigarette lighter , for example, has been silent for some time.” (213) Again, Saramago does not shy away from the disturbing when describing the disturbing, and it is this quality that helps the imagery become vivid, as a combination of fast prose, disturbing images, and dark material has created an image in my head that will remain for some time.

That the imagery is so strong is fascinating considering that it was written in another language. Writing well in a language not known requires skilled translators, and imagery like this reflects well on both the translator and the author.

In the Country of the Blind...

A fleeting quote, or reference possibly, took my interest when reading Blindness, a novel by Jose Saramago, a reference to the old saying "In the Country of the Blind, the one eyed man is king" which though it may not have been directly referenced brought me, in this roundabout way, to H.G .Wells, The Country of the Blind. Like Blindness, the Country of the Blind features a sole individual who can see, in a world of the blind. Like  the first half of Blindness the short story uses imagery and location to create a sense of claustrophobia, unlike blindness, however, the person who is effected
   
         The Country of the Blind follows a mountaineer who exploring a remote mountain range, stumble across a remote mountain valley inhabited by only the blind. Isolated by a great avalanche which fell across the far end of the valley, the locals of this valley had all become blind centuries before. Being blind so long, they do not believe the mountaineers stories of sight, and think that he is somewhat insane.  For a little while, the mountaineer believes that he can rule the valley, as sighted among the blind, but soon he gives up on his dreams of rule, realizing that he could not ruthless enough to take control, and the blind are more difficult to subdue than he thought. After a short while, having made peace with the blind, telling them they were right and he was mad, the mountaineer falls in love with one blind woman, whose eyes are less sunken in. The blind however, decide that it is his eyes that cause his "insanity", and they plot to have them removed, so the mountaineer flees, up into the mountains, where his fate is unknown.
Claustrophobia is a big similarity between the two stories. The first half of Blindness, taking place in an insane asylum, with guards guarding the entrances, is extremely claustrophobic, giving a sense of despair and an inability to escape. The people who go blind are not always good, and this claustrophobia is heightened by those with whom the "good" blind people are stuck with. Reading Blindness, I got a feeling of being stuck, not in a literal sense but in a more figurative one, with the walls of the Asylum closing in, locking good and bad together. I was reminded, reading this, not only of Country of the Blind, but also of a line in Watchmen, a line spoken by the mentally unstable vigilante Rorschach in a prison, " I am not stuck in here with you , you are stuck in here with me."

     In the Country of the Blind, the beautiful mountain valley, ringed with snow and cliffs, that is the Valley of the Blind may seem pristine and idyllic, but it quickly turns to claustrophobia, as the mountains block escape from the blind, who in a sort of well-meaning way, want the mountaineer to remain there and lose his only way of escape. The blindness of the denizens of the valley, the picturesque location, the perfection of their little village, adds to the claustrophobia, it is too good, and stifling. the blind though portrayed as people, are almost creepy in their mannerisms in the story, groping around for the mountaineer, " like a game of blindman's bluff."

There is one major difference in the claustrophobia of the two stories. The blind in The Country of the Blind do not know any better, and are not claustrophobic, but instead are bit of atmosphere. The people of blindness are often characters whose thoughts the reader knows, and the act of being blind, rather than the blind themselves, with creepy movements and a sort of misguided well-being is a huge source of claustrophobia.
I do not think that The Country of the Blind was a huge source of inspiration for Jose Saramago, when he wrote Blindness, but the parallels between the two stories are interesting, and this short blog post is only scratching the surface of the analysis that can be done between the two.

The one blind spot in an otherwise great novel: the characters of Blindness

Characters

The characters in Blindness tend, though are not necessarily, not the most developed, serving instead as tools to move the plot along, however there are a few exceptions, this post will focus on both the exceptions and the less interesting less-developed characters.The characters in Blindness do not have names, but they are still identifiable characters. A name is never mentioned in the novel, instead, characters are always identified by one characteristic: the Doctor's wife, the Doctor, the First Blind Man etc.

The First Blind Man is the person first infected by the white blindness. Though it appears at first that he is the main character of the story, as the first chapter follows him, in later chapters he is a secondary character, being more of a background character than anything else, though he is present for most of the book. He seemed to me to be relatively bland, with little personality, except occasionally in his interactions with the Car Thief. The First Blind Man’s Wife is also a important character, and appears often in the story, but like her husband, rarely seems to have defining characteristics making her an identifiable character.

The Car Thief is the main character of the second chapter, stealing the First Blind Man’s car, after helping him get home in the first chapter. After being unlikable for a little while, assaulting the Woman with Dark Glasses, and stealing the First Blind Man’s car, after he is injured by the Woman with Dark Glasses. He is is bedridden,and in addition to being blind, is pathetic, and as a result he gets sympathy. Somehow, he discovers the Doctor’s Wife’s secret, but when his leg hurts too much, he drags himself off to find help, going through an excellent example of  a every- likable-character-who-is-dying-slowly-coming-to-grips-with-death-before-they-die scene, complete with the Car Thief mentioning how nice everything was, how little things hurt, before he is shot by guards for what they believe is trying to escape. He is the first death.

The Boy with a Squint is another background character. His purpose is mostly to make people to feel sorry for him, as he rarely says much, or advances the plot. He is a patient of the Doctor, but to me, he does not really have a character, he is just someone for the other characters to pity.

The Old Man With an Eye Patch is a more developed character than the Boy. HE is some sort of former military man, and plans out the oppressed assault on the other blind men. The Old Man is isolated, having no family, towards the end of the book he falls in with the woman with the dark glasses.

The Accountant, and the Man With The Gun. are the closest thing the story has to “villain” characters. The soldiers are far from kind, but they are more afraid than anything else, afraid of being blind. The Accountant, who is a actually blind person caught up in the blindness epidemic, works an accountant for the group led by the man with the gun, who though suffering with white blindness holds power over his gang, and the women he rapes, using a gun. Both characters are again quite simplistic, with the accountant, being a sort of opposite to the sighted Doctor’s Wife, being the more developed character, taking control of the gang after the death of the man with the gun, using his previous blindness as an advantage, like the one eyed man in the land of the blind.

The girl with the dark glasses is another character with some personality. She was assaulted by the Car Thief and hurt him in retaliation, but in the end she feels sorry of him. She often takes care of the Boy with a Squint, and develops a relationship with the Old Man with an Eyepatch.

The Doctor and the Doctor’s wife are the two characters closest to a protagonist in this novel. The doctor was a vision doctor, an optometrist. who lost his sight after examining the first man. Despite being an eye doctor, he still attempts to help the Car Thief after he was injured. He, along with his wife, are elected as leader of his area in the insane asylum used in holding the blind. Even he, however, though somewhat developed, is not developed as much as the usual main character, as his past, and a large amount of his thoughts are not dwelled upon at all.

The Doctor’s wife is the probable main character in the story. Being able to see, she is the reader's window into the blind, the one normal person in all of this. She is kind, takes lead often, and tries to help the blind unlike people in similar situations in other literature, unlike Nunez in the Country of the Blind, she does not see herself as the one eyed man, as a greater power among the disabled.  She does not reveal her sightedness  until later in the book as she and her husband agreed that she would be like a slave if she did.

It is not the characters as much as the imagery and the suspense that really drives the book along, oftentimes the characters seem more like tools than people, focusing on just one character trait: the boy with a squint is lonely and scared, the man with the gun is evil. Some however, like the Car Thief, or the Doctor’s wife, however, do not feel like that, instead, they feel more like real people in real situations, so even if characters are not the novel’s strong suit the characters still work in the situations given.