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.