Blindness by José Saramago

This practical and insightful reading guide offers a complete summary and analysis of Blindness by José Saramago. It provides a thorough exploration of the novel’s plot, characters and main themes, including dehumanization and confinement. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time.

This clear and detailed 26-page reading guide is structured as follows:

• Biography of José Saramago
• Presentation of Blindness
• Summary of Blindness
• Character study
  • The first blind man
  • The car thief
  • The young woman with dark glasses
  • The old man with the eyepatch
  • The ophthalmologist
  • The ophthalmologist’s wife
  • The band of blind crooks
• Analysis of Blindness
  • Fantasy in the novel-essay
  • A metaphorical novel
  • The blindness epidemic: a metaphor, but for what?
  • A metaphor for concentration camps
  • The theme of dehumanization

About Blindness

Blindness was first published in 1995 and translated into English in 1998. It tells the story of a blindness epidemic which unexpectedly hits a crowded, cosmopolitan city. The victims are forced into quarantine, where they are steadily dehumanized.

Blindness is one of Saramago’s most famous novels. It was even adapted for cinema in 2007 and, some time before his death, Saramago gave the German composer Anno Schreier the right to make the novel into an opera.

About José Saramago

José Saramago was a Portuguese writer who was born in 1922. When he was young, he tried a range of different jobs, working first as journalist before moving on to being a translator. He eventually tried his hand at literature, and released his first novel, Terra do Pecado, in 1947. However, he only truly achieved recognition with the release of his first translated work, Baltasar and Blimunda.

Saramago was an atheist, and he decided to leave his country after his work, The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, was judged blasphemous. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998.