How Does Jose Saramago Create Change In The Book Blindness

One thing in life that will never change or go away is change. Change is a good thing because human beings are always evolving. If mankind stayed the same, humans could never mature or grow as people. Change is not always easy, in fact, change can be hard. In the novel Blindness by Jose Saramago, the doctor's wife undergoes change, and evolves from a timid follower to a courageous leader throughout four defining moments: when the doctor's wife lies about being blind to be with her husband, when she volunteers to go with other women to pay for their food, kills the leader of a gang group, and leads her group to escape the asylum.

First, the doctor's wife becomes more courageous when she lies to medical personnel so she can be with her

Nonetheless, the doctor’s wife does not fall victim to the mental blindness, and preserves her humanity and her compassion. Humanity in the inmates becomes lost, in a matter of just days. They no longer think about others, only for themselves, and the inmates become closed off and isolated. The author is trying to make the point that the blindness not only affects one's actually sight, but their thoughts and actions, and makes them lose who they and any sense of compassion. This is seen in most of the inmates because they go to the bathroom anywhere the feel is convenient for them, and become hostile to one another. This hostility is seen early in the novel with the thief and the girl with the dark glasses. “The girl gave a backwards kick as hard as she could” (Saramago 50). This action shows the anger and frustration already growing in the asylum, and leaves the reader to infer that there will be more. However, throughout the novel, the doctor’s wife never develops a selfish nature, and always thinks of her husband well being before herself. When the doctor’s wife’s group becomes petrified of the hoodlum group, they are too afraid and hopeless to do anything about it. The doctor’s wife makes another dangerous decision to take matters into her own hands, and kill the leader of the hoodlum group. This is a courageous plan because the leader

The doctor’s wife goes into a store and finds food and brings it back to her group, and pushes her way through the herds of blind in the store. This is courageous because the store is packed with starving, blind people, willing to do anything to obtain sustenance. This is also gallant because the doctor’s wife is in a foreign town, and struggles to return to her group amidst a thunderstorm. Despite the dilemma of leading cold, starving, blind people; who are hundreds of miles from home, she shows courage and overcomes those obstacles by leading them home. When faced with the task of reaching the house of the girl with the dark glasses, an elderly couple appear to be living in her home, and deliver the heartbreaking news that the girl with the dark glasses’s parents have died. The doctor’s wife shows courage because she comforts the girl with the dark glasses and shows compassion for her. She leads her group back to her and her husband’s house, and decides to bathe them. Saramago uses the doctor’s wife’s quote: “I shall cleans whatever is still dirty” to lead the reader to infer that she will clean not only physical things, but figurative ones also. The author uses the women’s dialects to symbolize not only a physical, but spiritual cleansing. When the women are cleaning themselves and