The way a book is written can some times greatly affect the way readers take in its context. With José Saramago’s novel, Blindness, there is an epidemic in a city where everyone suddenly goes blind and sees nothing but white. This ‘disease’ is contagious in the way that whoever is around someone who is ‘infected’ for a certain time, will in turn, go blind also. The method in which the book is written enhances, to a certain extent, the theme of the novel. He gives the reader an illusion of being blind also by using no quotations, not naming any of the characters, and by having limited punctuation which can, at times, be confusing.
When one is blind, communication with another person can be some what confusing. However, when one is blind, and is stuck in a room with many others who are also blind, conversations can be very confusing. This method of ‘confusion’ is obtained in the novel through José Saramago’s lack of quotations. Instead of using them, he will instead separate people’s speech with commas and capitalize the first letter of each word starting the person’s text. This method, although interesting, can sometimes be confusing as to who is speaking, which gives the effect of actually having the blindness ourselves. In one part of the book Saramago writes a discussion between two characters and swaps back and forth between the two, separating each person’s text by commas. “Then why don’t you tell me the truth, We’ll talk tomorrow, now go to sleep, Yes, tomorrow if I get that far, We mustn’t think the worst, I do, or perhaps It’s the fever thinking for me.” (Saramago, Pg.70). As you can tell from the text, it is sometimes hard to know which character is saying what. This method is even more confusing though when the author writes a conversation that last half a page, and includes many characters.
If not having quotations wasn’t confusing enough, Saramago also decided not to name the characters, but instead people are associated by descriptive appellations. For example, there is an eye doctor in the book who goes by the title ‘Doctor’, and his wife goes by the title ‘Doctor’s Wife’. Then there’s a car thief who goes by the title ‘Thief’. At some time the names are obvious, but then others, like a girl who has the title ‘Girl with dark glasses’ because she has sun glasses, can at times confuse the reader because they have to think back to remember who that character was.
In the book, the people who have the blindness ‘disease’ are considered a threat and therefore are locked up in an old metal institution. There are two sides to the institution, one side has people who are blind, while the other holds people who’ve came into contact with people who are blind and it’s only a matter of time before they end up blind also. The lack of naming the characters relates to the fact that, if there was a big group of people who are all blind and never met before, and where more blind people are added to this group daily, learning each other’s name wouldn’t be of any use. The people learn this quickly and it is shown in the book when they decide to go around in a circle and “each person give their name.” (Saramago, Pg.59). One man starts off by giving himself the title as ‘a policeman’. The doctor’s wife wonders why he didn’t give his name then suddenly realizes that “names are of no importance here.” (Saramago, Pg.59).
Therefore, by not giving the names of any of the characters to the reader, they feel right at place with the others.
However, this method, as does having no quotations, can be confusing for the reader. Not only do they not know is speaking at times, but they may also literally not know who speaking because they can’t remember someone who has the title ‘the boy with the squint’ ever being introduced.
If those two factors weren’t bad enough, Saramago also decided to use a limited amount of punctuation. Readers will sometimes find themselves staring at a sentence that will run on for close to half a page. He’ll switch from one topic to another, from one characters speech to another, all by using a single comma as a divider. In one part of the book
“The girl closed her eyes, remained like that for a minute, she might have fallen asleep for it not for the quarrel that suddenly erupted, someone had gone to the lavatory and on his return found his bed occupied, no harm was meant, the other fellow had gotten up for the same reason, they had passed each other on the way, and obviously it did not occur to each other to say, Take care not to get into the wrong bed when you come back.” (Saramago, Pg.97). As you can see from this text, it is easily understood, however the transition from sentence to sentence and from narrative text to speech can be sometimes confusing, especially if the sentence runs on for half a page.
From the lack of quotations to the limited amount of punctuation, the story is hard to follow at times. Even though this may seem as a bad thing, it adds a different touch to such a distinct book. It gives the reader a feeling of almost being blind themselves. They sometimes have no idea which character is speaking, and they don’t even have a name to put to a character.
