The Literature Book

320

PERHAPS ONLY IN A

WORLD OF THE BLIND

WILL THINGS BE WHAT

THEY TRULY ARE

BLINDNESS (1995), JOSÉ SARAMAGO

J

osé Saramago’s harrowing

novel Blindness (originally

published in Portuguese as

Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira, “Essay

on Blindness”) is an example

of allegorical satire—a type of

narrative that has a parallel subtext

that is often moral or political in

nature. In allegorical satire, events

are used explicitly or implicitly

as metaphors to ridicule aspects

of society, politics, or life. In

Blindness, the satire is inspired

by Portugal’s Estado Novo (New

State), an authoritarian regime

that ruled the country from 1933 to

1974, although the novel’s actual

settings, characters, and times are

left ambiguous. Under scrutiny is

the lack of morality, kindness, and

empathy typical of any right-wing

c apit a l i s t societ y.

What if we were all blind?

The novel describes events after

people in a city of an unnamed

country start going blind—not a

dark blindness, but a milky, pearl-

white blindness. The affliction

spreads via human contact or

Society is affected by

metaphorical blindness:

lack of empathy, reason,

and morality.

Members of society are

affected, as a result,

by literal blindness.

Society seeks to

incarcerate, quarantine,

and contain the affected.

New societies form in

blindness, as the old ones

descend into darkness.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Allegorical satire

BEFORE

1605 In Don Quixote, Miguel

de Cervantes explores the

inability to see the world

as it really is, in his main

character’s delusional quest

to enact a knight’s saga.

1726 Anglo-Irish writer

Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s

Travels exaggerates moral

and political corruption in

tales of fantastical cultures.

1945 In Animal Farm, English

author George Orwell traces

the parallels between the

degeneration of politics in

human society and a cast

of rebellious farm animals.

AFTER

2008–10 American writer

Suzanne Collins publishes The

Hunger Games, using allegorical

satire to indicate the power of

media as a political tool in

contemporary American society.

The world of the blind

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