Blindness

The arrival of the new internees has two advantages. First, a full facility means the blind will be able to set up a more stable social system. Second, the government will start to deliver the right amount of food on time in part because they no longer must guess the number of mouths to feed, and also to prevent an organized uprising. More importantly, this chapter gives readers a glimpse of the world outside of the asylum. When the old man with the black eyepatch arrives in the first ward, the doctor realizes that the old man was one of his patients and chats with him. Then the old man reveals that he bought a battery-powered radio, and his fellow ward mates gather around to listen. He can tune to a music station, which announces the time is four o’clock in the afternoon. The doctor’s wife resets her watch, though the girl hears the click of the dial and asks about it. The doctor’s wife tells her it is a nervous tic and narrowly escapes discovery.

The old man then begins to tell everyone what he knows (though the second narrator steps in to offer more details).