So much of what has been discussed throughout this semester can be linked back to Blindness. Hotel Rwanda and the world not doing anything is a huge link. The idea of justice, and what is justice is brought up when the doctor’s wife kills the rouges. Government and the best way to rule is seeing both while in the asylum, then later out on the streets. People attempt to organize themselves any way possible. The rouges rule by force, the doctor’s wife rules by the sheer fact that she can see. The ideas of nature can be seeing with survival of the fittest. Those who are smart enough to know how to survive are capable of it. Money has little value for the blind. Food has become the new form of wealth. Even the mind can be linked. We read about people being blind about what they do not know and not knowing the truth.

For me, this is one the most moving novels I have ever read. It has had a great impact on me. I read it last semester for a literature class, and now having read for a second time, I have found it to be even better. Saramago has written a novel so extraordinary, about something so important. The overall theme is blindness. Society is blind to the problems of others. Saramago is trying to say that this must change. We can not sit year and watch the horrors of the world. Something must be done about it. The novel touches on so many issues. Racism and its consequences can be seen when the blind are separated from the unblind. The unblind were afraid of the blind, so the separated themselves form the blind. This reminds of the Jim Crowe laws of the south and the idea of separate, but equal. The army tried to give food for both, but it ended up not working. The next issue Saramago brings up is famine. It became obvious early on that food is going to become a major issue. Saramago is linking this to third world countries were thousands of people are dieing because there is not enough food to eat. Saramago then goes on to talk about gender inequality. He shows how women are treated like mere objects, good for very little in this world. While all three of these issues are not extremely prevalent here in the U.S., they still exist. I think, however, that nations like the U.S. are the ones who are blind. We are the ones who have the power to do something, yet choose to sit by and do nothing. We just let this problems keep happening. Occasionally a story will appear in the news in-between the Hollywood scandals and the sports about something horrible happening, but for the most part, we are blind to the problems of the world.