Authorities confine the blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and raping women. GradeSaver, Web.A city is hit by an epidemic of 'white blindness' which spares no one. Next Section Blindness Summary Buy Study Guide How To Cite in MLA Format Anthony P.

This helps sustain the disoriented tone of the novel. Finally, Saramago refuses to use quotation marks or dialogue attribution, meaning that it is difficult to determine who is speaking at times. This gives the novel a sense of floating without any concrete reference to reality. Secondly, Saramago avoids the use of personal pronouns of any kind. No amount of quarantining, disinfecting or vaccines can stop the spread of the disease–many citizens think that it is spread by eye contact. In the novel, the entirety of society is stricken by an epidemic of blindness that turns everyone's field of vision into a milky white as opposed to the usual black. Firstly, the premise of his book is somewhat fantastic. The second one has not seen a theatrical release, but has published in translation as Seeing.īlindness has a number of stylistic elements that are characteristic of Saramago's work. Blindness comprises the first half of a two part series of 'essays' (the original Portuguese title translates as Essay on Blindness). This book has been Saramago's most widely read book, partly because of the 2008 release of the movie, directed by Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles, based on novel. The English translation was released in 1998. Only through the help of the one woman who has miraculously been saved her sight is the band able to hold on to some shred of humanity and recognize what it is to be human.īlindness was first published as Ensaio sobre a cegueira in Portugal in 1995. Once out of the quarantine the band must now try to make their way in a completely blind city, where humanity has all but descended into animal chaos. These seven are forced to band together in order to survive not only the horrors of living in a blind world, but also the most base elements of humanity that take hold in the quarantine.

The novel follows the story of seven people who are quarantined along with 300 other people in an abandoned madhouse. In this 1998 book by Nobel Prize winner José Saramago, an unnamed city is beset by an epidemic of the 'white sickness,' a disease that instantly turns everyone blind.

Blindness jose saramago book