Analysis of Blindness with Plato’s Allegory of the Cave：
Exploration of the Meaning of Blindness and The Role of the Doctor’s Wife
李幸容
Blindness is written by Jose Saramago, a Nobel Prize winner for literature. On the
New York Times Best-sellers List, it draws many people’s attention and is adapted to
a movie in 2008. In Blindness, Saramago presents us with such a problematic society.
A man is waiting for the light to turn green and suddenly goes blind. This is the first
blind man. Slowly, the mysterious disease, white blindness, spread to the whole nation.
But there is one sighted person left, the doctor’s wife. She is the only observer to the
disaster.
The meaning of Blindness
Is the white blindness a metaphor？ What kind of metaphor is it？ In George
Snedeker’s note for Blindness , he views the blindness as a metaphor for both personal
misfortune and social catastrophe. With a large number of people going blind, the
public health officials are scared and the blind citizens are quarantined in a former
mental hospital. According to George Snedeker, it is clearly a sign of limitation. It
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causes the entire society to no longer function. It also places blind people in the
condition of physical risk and psychological torment. The society no longer functions
because the blind are not able to provide the ordinary services that we are routinely
dependent upon for survival. For example, they can’t deal with the production and
distribution of food, water and electricity.
Saramago uses a quotation from the Book of Exhortations as the epigram to
Blindness：”If you can see, look. If you can look, observe.” Near the end of the novel,
when the blind people are getting their vision back, one of his character says, “I don’t
think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can
see , but do not see.” For illustration, here is a statement regarding Blindness, quoted
from the internet review. It is said to be made by author during his Nobel Lecture.
Blind. The apprentice thought, “we are blind”, and he sat down and wrote
Blindness to remind those who might read it that we pervert reason when
we humiliate life, that human dignity is insulted every day by our world,
that the universal lie has replaced the plural truths, and that man stopped
respecting himself when he lost the respect due to his fellow-creatures.
Saramago’s statement shows that people lost themselves in the modern society.
They try hard adapting to the changing society and fulfill their dreams. People make
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plans to carry out their goal. They follow the “order” of the society and form their
own principle to lead meaningful lives. But if the order is destroyed, they may find
themselves in a society that no longer functions and suffer from the chaos.
Blindness and Plato’s allegory of the cave
Near the end of Blindness, one of the characters says that perhaps they had never
really been blind, that perhaps the sighted do not really see. The analogy between
“seeing“ and ”understanding” is one of the oldest ideas in Western philosophy.
Plato’s Allegory of the cave may be helpful to illustrate the story.
To know the relationship between seeing and understanding, we can explore from
the Allegory of the cave. It is an allegory in The Republic. The story describes a group
of people are sitting in one long row in a dark underground cave. Bound to their
chairs since childhood, all the humans can see is the distant cave wall. All they can
see is nothing but shadows. It is important to note that the "prisoners" do not realize
that they are being held captive, since that existence is all they have ever known.
It may indicate that common people are blind and can only see the “form” of the
subject. In the book, A guide to the essential texts from Plato to Rousseau , John Day
also brings out this idea. “Since the chained men can not see the real object or the fire,
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they think shadows constitute reality. This is the lowest level of understanding. Men
at the stage accept appearance quite uncritically”. (P30) In the end of Blindness,
people regain their vision and see the world with clearer eyes. Just like the book, the
Allegory of the cave end up with prisoners’ releasing from their chain. They see at the
back of the Cave fire and the objects passed in front of it. They finally learn that their
first level of understanding was only an illusion based on ignorance.
Plato sends out some people to go out of the cave to experience the real world.
John Day says that those people are obtaining their reason and knowledge through
this long and difficult way. In Blindness, people do suffer from a great disaster to see
the real world. What they used to believe in turns out to be a trash. The thing they
didn’t cast a glance at is a treasure. They find the true meaning of lives.
The role of the doctor’s wife
Saramago creates a world of blindness to indicate people’s limited mind. It’s
interesting to have the only visible character, the doctor’s wife, to be the narrator of
the story. She helps the blind people to survive. Her eyes allow her to lead the others
to safety. Her eyes enable her to exercise a degree of control over the situation. She
kills the blind people causing the chaos. Now I want to ask what kind of role does the
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doctor’s wife play in the story？ As an omniscience of the narrator, she accepts the
situation and stays with a small group of followers. What makes her so special and
prevents her from suffering the disease？
In the review of Jose Saramago’s Blindness, Emre Peker views the doctor’s wife
as a prophet. She is a leader with vision and tries to deal with the chaos. In the
Allegory of the Cave, there are some men, the potential philosophers, climbing out of
the cave before others. They walk in a difficult and long way to go out. At first, they
are dazzled by the strong light. But soon, they get accustomed to the light and see the
real world. Gaining the real knowledge, those people go back to the cave. The
philosophers may be confused on whether to return to the cave. They may desire to
escape from the darkness. However, they recognize that they have a duty to help those
people in ignorance in the Cave by using their knowledge of reality.
If we refer seeing to be understanding, having the vision is quite like having the
knowledge. The doctor’s wife can see the world. Her brilliant eyes make her different
from others. Using the analogy, we can say that people’s knowledge make them
different from the public. However, what is knowledge？
The study of knowledge is called Epistemology. It tends to solve the problem of
distinguishing between thinking that we know something and actually knowing it.
Without the distinction, we might just be living in the fantasy. In Lowell Kleiman and
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Stephen Lewis’s book, they think knowing is quite like a supermarket scanner. It can
identify the milk but does not know it’s a container of milk. A person, unlike a
supermarket scanner, can not only recognize things and know how to do things but
can also know that something is the case.
Instead of fleeing away from the chaos, the doctor’s wife decides to stay with the
blindness and helps people to reset the order. Seeing the world clearly, she can be
viewed as the philosopher with knowledge. People who can achieve enlightenment
deserve to be the leader and ruler of the rest. Some comments for the philosopher may
also apply to her. There are some statements about the philosophers of the Allegory of
the Cave from John Day.
The story of the Cave, as well as underlining the importance of philosophers
becoming kings is valuable for showing the connection between the
different levels of understanding and the ways in which men may progress
from one stage to another…The philosopher‘s work is not to find essences,
but to explore the persuasiveness and intelligibility of various definitions
and to investigate their relationship to each other. (P.31)
The decision of the doctor’s wife
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The following paragraph is from Blindness. It’s the plot that the doctor finds out his
wife is not blind and urges her to leave. However, she refuses his suggestion.
To a mental asylum, but he anticipated her, you’re not blind, I can’t allow
you to stay here, Yes, you are right, I’m not blind, Then I’m going to ask
them to take you home, to tell them that you told a lie in order to remain
with me, There’s no point, they can not hear you through there, and even if
they could, they would pay no attention…No, my love, you can’t, I’m
staying to help you and others who may come here, but don’t tell them I can
see, What others you surely don’t think we shall be here on our own, This is
madness, What did you expect, we are in a mental asylum. (P.40)
It’s interesting to see that the doctor’s wife keeps her remaining vision as a secret.
But, Why does she decide to be silent and pretend as if she was also blind？ Will it
be dangerous to reveal the truth？ Compared to the Allegory of the Cave, What will
happen if the prisoner who go out run back to the cave and tell the others directly
about the real world？ Will the others see him as a mad person? In the real world,
there are many philosophers, trying to reveal the truth. However, they often suffer
from misunderstanding and teasing. For example, when the western church believed
in the idea that the world is firmly established, and it cannot be moved, Galileo held
the different idea. He found out that Sun lies motionless at the centre of the universe,
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and that the Earth is not at its centre and moves. He was requested to abjure his
opinion and became guilty. Galileo suffered from revealing the truth.
The world is mad and blind. The decision of remaining silent is clever. If she told
others the truth, she might be expelled from the hospital. It would not improve the
situation. Staying with the blind people and leading them to reset the order, she cures
the “blindness” little by little.
Conclusion
This paper tends to view Saramago’s Blindness as an allergory. The mysterious
disease, white blindness, can stand for a personal misfortune, social catastrophe and
people’s limited mind. Using the analogy helps us to explore the meaning of the book
and get the idea easily. To know the relationship between seeing and understanding,
we can learn from Plato’s Allegory of the cave. The blind people in Blindness are like
the prisoner caught in the cave. The only one with vision, the doctor’s wife, can be
viewed as the prisoner experienced the real world before others. Her role is like the
prophet as well as a philosopher. She stays with the blindness and tries to reset the
order in the chaos. With her bright eyes, she sees the real world clearly. A person with
the real knowledge can be suitable to describe her. However, it may lead to the more
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chaotic situation if she revealed her remaining vision to others at first. Dealing with
the blindness and enlightening people little by little, the doctor’s wife plays the role of
the philosopher and the leader.
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Works Cited
Day, John.” Plato: The Republic” The Political Classics:A Guide to the essential texts
from Plato to Rousseau .Oxford, New York：Oxford, 1992
Kleiman, Lowell and Lewis, Stephen .Philosophy: An Introduction through Literature.
United states：Paragon House,1992
Peker, Emre. “The review of Jose Saramago’s Blindness” 14 May.2008
<http://www.themillionsblog.com/2007/07/living-in-shadows-review-of-jose.html>
Saramago, Jose. Blindness. Orlando, Austin, New York, San Diego, Toronto,
London：Harcourt, 1997
Snedeker, George. “Between Metaphor and Referent：Reading Saramago’s Blindness”
10 May.2008
<http://www.webster.edu/~corbetre/personal/reading/saramago-blindness.html >
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