Blindness (Vintage classics)

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Saramago, Jose (20 April 2002). "De las piedras de David a los tanques de Goliat". El País. In Spanish: "educados y formados en la idea de que cualquier sufrimiento que hayan infligido . . . a los demas ... siempre sera inferior a los que ellos padecieron en el Holocausto, los judios arañan sin cesar su herida para que no dejede sangrar, para hacerla incurable, y la muestran al mundo como una bandera." a b c Evans, Julian (28 December 2002). "The militant magician". The Guardian . Retrieved 28 December 2002. Saramago was a member of the Communist Party of Portugal, [10] and in his late years defined himself as a proponent of libertarian communism. [7] He ran in the 1989 Lisbon local election as part of the "Coalition For Lisbon," and was elected alderman presiding officer of the Municipal Assembly of Lisbon. [30] Saramago was also a candidate of the Democratic Unity Coalition in all elections of the European Parliament from 1989 to 2009, though he ran for positions of which it was thought he had no possibility of winning. [30] He was a critic of European Union (EU) and International Monetary Fund (IMF) policies. [9] Scott, A. O. (2008-08-03). "Characters Who Learn to See by Falling Into a World Without Sight". The New York Times . Retrieved 2010-07-13.

The doctor’s wife, who emerges as the main character, acquires an increasing and all-encompassing metaphorical significance. Besides being the only one who can see, she is also the one who most deeply understands, feels, acts, and helps others. However, she too falls into profound moral doubt, for instance when she kills the leader of the depraved clique of blind men. As Blindness reclaims the age-old story of a plague, it evokes the vivid and trembling horrors of the twentieth century, leaving readers with a powerful vision of the human spirit that’s bound both by weakness and exhilarating strength.In 1998 Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature with the prize motivation: "who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality." [21] Our academic experts are ready and waiting to assist with any writing project you may have. From simple essay plans, through to full dissertations, you can guarantee we have a service perfectly matched to your needs. View our services In 1924, Saramago's family moved to Lisbon, where his father started working as a policeman. A few months after the family moved to the capital, his brother Francisco, older by two years, died. He spent vacations with his grandparents in Azinhaga. When his grandfather suffered a stroke and was to be taken to Lisbon for treatment, Saramago recalled, "He went into the yard of his house, where there were a few trees, fig-trees, olive trees. And he went one by one, embracing the trees and crying, saying goodbye to them because he knew he would not return. To see this, to live this, if that doesn't mark you for the rest of your life," Saramago said, "you have no feeling." [11] Although Saramago was a good pupil, his parents were unable to afford to keep him in grammar school, and instead moved him to a technical school at age 12.

This, on the face of it, is an odd description of Blindness, for in that book it is powerless people who insult human dignity - ordinary people, terrified at finding themselves and everyone else blind, everything out of control. Some behave with stupid, selfish brutality, sauve qui peut. The group of men who seize power in an asylum and use and abuse the weaker inmates have indeed abandoned self-respect and human decency: they are a microcosm of the corruption of power. But the truly powerful of our world don't even appear in Blindness. Seeing is all about them: the perverters of reason, the universal liars. It is about government gone wrong. Saramago emphasizes that narratives can function as survival mechanisms and help people achieve freedom from oppression. In the hospital, the blind internees “pass the time” by telling stories, which allows them to reclaim their humanity and individuality in an environment where they otherwise seem homogeneous. Later, when the first blind man and the man’s wife visit their old apartment, they find a blind writer living there. This man goes on writing, even though he cannot read his own work, because this is how he preserves his “voice” and maintains his identity during the blindness crisis. While everybody else is desperately wandering the streets, focusing on little besides food and seeking meaning through religion and politics, the writer maintains his decency and composure inside, using narrative as a means of survival. The doctor’s wife, who takes the law into her own hands in Blindness, and Raimundo Silva, whose anarchical action literally rewrites history in The History of the Siege of Lisbon, find their counterpart in the police commissioner in Seeing. All these protagonists break with the status quo and make free choices that transcend their individuality while also taking others into consideration, and they all assume responsibility for their actions in their social and historical context. In Seeing, the idea of freedom manifests in the form of a liberating political action, whether practiced individually by the protagonist or as a collective by all those who cast blank ballots. Saramago suggests that any ethical and moral orientation can only be deduced from an understanding of freedom that expresses itself in action.Thompson, Anne (2008-05-20). "Buyers proceed with caution at Cannes". Variety. Reed Business Information . Retrieved 2008-05-20. Kilday, Gregg (2006-11-01). " 'Blindness' gains Focus for int'l sales". The Hollywood Reporter. The Nielsen Company. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30 . Retrieved 2007-06-18. a b c d e f g h i j k l "Blindness production notes" (PDF). Cannes Film Festival. Focus Features. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2008-08-13 . Retrieved 2008-05-20.

Fernando Meirelles to Direct Blindness". ComingSoon.net. Crave Online Media, LLC. 2006-09-13. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30 . Retrieved 2007-06-18. a b Eberstadt, Fernanda (18 June 2010). "José Saramago, Nobel Prize-Winning Writer, Dies". The New York Times . Retrieved 18 June 2010. An easier way to establish context for Blindness would be to analyze Saramago’s life as well as the historical events surrounding it. On November 16, 1992, José Saramago was born in Azinhaga, Portugal in the Ribatejo province to a poor farming family. His father had served in the French military during World War I, and he decided to pursue a career in law enforcement in Lisbon, Portugal’s capital. Their way of living had greatly improved because of his new job, but they remained poor regardless of a new home. Saramago’s parents sent him to grammar school, though, they could not afford the tuition long enough for him to finish his studies. As a result, Saramago attended a technical school to become a mechanic while studying literature during his free time. Before marrying his first wife Ilda Reis in 1944, he began working as an administrative civil servant for the Social Welfare Service. Three years later he published his first book, The Land of Sin, though his initial literary endeavors were not very successful. He wrote more novels, but he failed to publish his projects. Saramago describes his early attempts at writing in his autobiography, “The matter was settled when I abandoned the project[s]: it was becoming quite clear to me that I had nothing worthwhile to say… For 19 years, I was absent from the Portuguese literary scene, where few people can have noticed my absence” (Saramago, “Autobiography”). Siegel, Tatiana (2007-06-12). "3 succumb to 'Blindness' at Focus Int'l". The Hollywood Reporter. The Nielsen Company. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30 . Retrieved 2007-06-18. Saramago wrote a sequel to Blindness in 2004, titled Seeing ( Ensaio sobre a lucidez, literal English translation Essay on lucidity), which has also been translated into English. The sequel novel takes place in the same country featured in Blindness and features several of the same nameless characters.

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If you need assistance with writing your essay, our professional essay writing service is here to help! Essay Writing Service The film appeared on some critics' top ten lists of the best films of 2008. Bill White of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer named it the 5th best film of 2008, [46] and Marc Savlov of The Austin Chronicle named it the 8th best film of 2008. [46] Awards and accolades [ edit ] Douglas Silva as an onlooker. Silva has previously acted in many Meirelles films, including the 2002 film City of God. Saramago was highly distrusting of the Salazar regime and government, so he joined the Portuguese Communist Party in 1969. To do so was illegal under Salazar’s dictatorship. Within the last few years of Salazar’s rule, Saramago worked for two Lisbon newspapers, Diário de Lisboa and, later, Diário de Nóticias. He lost his job from the latter in 1975 after the new anti-Communist government had come into power. With no hopes of finding another journalistic position, he turned to writing literature and developed his unique writing, consisting of very little punctuation and dialogue within narration. The Day of the Triffids, the 1951 John Wyndham novel (and its many adaptations) about societal collapse following widespread blindness