Blindness

From the first to the last page of the novel, the issue of sightlessness comes up repeatedly. Ultimately, Saramago addresses two types of blindness in the novel—physical blindness and metaphorical blindness. Physical blindness and the complications of going suddenly blind drive the action of the novel. On one level, the importance of physical sight (or the lack thereof) demonstrates how ingrained visual perception is to society. The ways in which people move and live in the world are predicated on sight. On another level, losing physical sight reveals the innate ableism of society. Nothing about modern life in Blindness is adaptive. The blind lose their autonomy as soon as they lose their sight. Without eyesight, people become helpless, and that enables Saramago to explore how the world grinds to a halt as the apocalypse rolls on.

However, blindness carries significant metaphorical meaning, too. Saramago argues that literal blindness is the physical manifestation of the metaphorical blindness endemic to modern social systems. The privileging of individual needs and the value placed on perceived truth creates a society of deeply selfish people. Consider the car thief: He steals the blind man’s car for no other reason than that he wants to. The narrator explains, “It was only when he got close to the blind man’s home that the idea came to him quite naturally” (16), and he does not feel guilty afterward, assuming that a blind man would no longer find use in a vehicle.