I imagine that if our country was suddenly struck with a blindness epidemic, people would react like they do in the book. Even though we have faced epidemics, they were not the same as having everyone going blind. Other epidemics involve people getting sick and dying; a blindness epidemic keeps everyone alive, but completely changes their lives. Eventually it would change all of society and how it functions, and we wouldn't know what to do. In my critical thinking class, we talked about who responds best to emergency situations, like the one in Blindness. My professor talked about a book (or maybe an article—I don’t remember) that analyzed people’s reactions to the famous War of the Worlds broadcast. The author was interested in finding out how we deal in situations like that. Who panics? Who is calm and takes control? Our professor told us that those who had been trained for emergency situations were the least likely to panic. Even though their training did not include what to do during an alien invasion, a nurse, for example, would still know to go to the hospital. People felt better when they knew that they had a role in case of a disaster.
In Blindness, no one really had a role. It ended up being a kind of disaster because people had no idea what to do. The best thing they could think of was to round up all the blind and get them away from everyone else. Of course, they did that to help stop the spread of blindness, but also because they were scared. Getting the blind of out plain sight would help people deal with it, because it would be easier to avoid. I think that simply not being able to see something makes it easier to deal with. Being in the quarantine seemed almost worse for the doctor’s wife because she could see everything that was going on. She could see the awful state of things around her, and things like the thief’s face and skull blown apart by the gunshots. Even though the blind could imagine what had happened, it would still be different than actually seeing it. They had to spend their time figuring out to do basic things, rather focusing on what was happening to society while they were there. And most likely, things probably weren't working out too well.
3 comments:
I've been wondering the cause of the blindness. Is it actually a medical cause, like some virus or something that really is contagious? Or is it something religious, like a punishment from god or something like that? The only thing is that why would the first blind guy be the one to go blind... as far as we know, he didn't do anything to deserve the blindness. Or is it somehow the other way around? Is it something that is more like protection or redemption? But then why would the car thief get it? He has been bad the whole time except for the time when he helped the first guy. When the guy kept thanking him though, there was some foreshadowing... he kept saying tomorrow it could be you. And it was... so just kind of thinking out loud here, but i'm still not seeing the symbolism or any other foreshadowing here, so i'm kinda confused is all by all the blind people with no apparent cause.
I wonder what would have caused the blindness, too. I would definitely be wondering why if I was in that situation. If it really happened, we would want to find out why it was happening so that we could prevent it from spreading or cure those who were already blind. But as I was reading Blindness, for some reason, I didn't really care why it was happening. I got the sense that it doesn't matter, at least in this story. What does matter is how society, and individuals react to the blindness epidemic. The consequences of the blindness epidemic would probably tell us more about ourselves than knowing the cause could.
I think Blindness is very interesting. I, as you two are, wonder what the cause is but at the same time am more concentrated on the way they are treating the people who are blind. Society is so cold-hearted to these people. Of course nobody wants to go blind and they want to keep it from spreading but there is no reason to completely shut these people out of the world. They provide very little food and no medical supplies whatsoever. It is as though the people are non-exsistent. It is cruel the way they are locked up and treated as if they were never anybody. I think throughout the story some questions will be answered. This book is very interesting and difinitely keeps my attention. I want to find out what happens in the end and as the story continues on. Is there a specific reason why these people did in fact go blind? I also find in unique how the characters don't have names but they go by professions as in class. It's almost as if they are ranking who is better by class. This is a very big discussion topic.
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