Blindness
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Blindness

by Jose Saramago

592 learnersReview
When an ordinary man suddenly loses his sight to a strange, milky white blindness—his eyes physically unharmed—the phenomenon spreads like wildfire across an unnamed city. As panic erupts, the government quarantines all the blind and their contacts in a derelict psychiatric hospital, cutting them off with brutal rules and armed guards. Inside the camp, societal norms crumble: hunger drives theft, power corrupts into violence and exploitation, and humanity’s darkest impulses take hold. Yet amid chaos, glimmers of compassion persist—most notably in the doctor’s wife, who secretly retains her sight, sacrificing her dignity to protect fellow inmates. When the quarantine collapses, survivors navigate an anarchic city, clinging to fragile bonds. As blindness mysteriously lifts, they emerge with sight restored, but haunted by a question: have they truly seen human nature’s depths, or are they still blind to the world’s unspoken cruelties?

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