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Post by emilianaranjo on Aug 29, 2010 20:43:39 GMT -5
“Some will die sooner if we go there, said the first blind man, Anyone who is going to die is already dead and does not know it, That we´re going to die is something we know from the moment we are born, That´s why, in some ways it´s as we are born dead…” (pg. 201)
Through the book Blindness I found quite a few interesting quotes, but this one was the one that made me reflect about my own life. In context it defines our purpose in life as human beings, our life cycle in which starts with life and ends up in death. This sentence made me reflects that we just have one life to enjoy it, and what we do with it is just about take our own decisions. However decisions must be based on a goal, on what do we want to accomplish with ourselves. In my case I have a goal in which I try to live every moment of my life in the present, not thinking on the future since nobody can assure that I have one, and not thinking in the past because I can´t turn back in time and change what I did. Just living every second as if maybe the last one since nobody has a secure future to rely on.
Emilia Naranjo
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Post by mariapaulaborja on Aug 29, 2010 21:09:44 GMT -5
“ [...] the doctor took out the file of the man who had turned up blind, he read it once, twice, reflected for several minutes and finally rang a colleague with whom he held the following conversation: ´I must tell you, today I dealt with the strangest case, a man who totally lost his sight from one instant to the next, the examination revealed no perceptible lesion or signs of any malformation from birth, he says he sees everything white, a kind of thick, milky whiteness that clings to his eyes´[...] ” (Pg. 19 )
This part of the book is significant because the doctor is telling about the first person who got blind. He still has sight and reacts confused with it, and he doesnt know he is going to go blind as him. Also its impacting because it gives an explanation on how it is a weird epidemic and they see white and milky instead of a regular blindness which you can see black and it has its explanation.
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Post by franciscaalarcon on Aug 29, 2010 21:34:52 GMT -5
"this was followed by a long silence, for the women everything had been said, the men would have to find the words, and they knew already that they would be incapable of doing so." pg. 204 Women were raped in order to get food. They had to give their bodies to this sick men that took advantage of them. This is a very chauvinistic part of the book where we can see that women were treated as an object. Husbands let her wives do this for not starving and no one couldn't do much about it. The doctor's wife stand up for those mistreated women and kill the men that started all this degrading conditions. Once more we can see how brave she is.
falarcon
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Post by Melissa Vorbeck on Aug 29, 2010 23:18:12 GMT -5
“…her future was a closed book and the curiosity of opening it had not yet been born.” (pg. 22)
I found this quote interesting because I feel like it shows the change in one of the characters. The girl with dark glasses sometimes seems like she is stuck in her own little world. At first, in my opinion, she gives off the impression that she doesn’t want to change her habits or way of living. During the time she spent in the mental hospital you can sort of sense her changing. She acts more grown up and even mothers the boy with the squint. It shows that she was able to get the courage to open that book and discover a new, better future.
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Post by alegriabaus on Sept 5, 2010 11:23:09 GMT -5
"All I know is that we would never have foud ourselves in this situation if their leader hadn't been killed, what did it matter if hte women had to go there twice a month to give these men what nature gave them to give" (pg. 195)
I found this quote very disguisting! I believe this is one of the best quotes to say that this blindness represents the ignorance this society lived in. It also shows how women were seen in those times, like a sex toy. This quote is one of the strongest in the book, because it is vary degrading to all women. Alegria Baus
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Post by majoborja on Sept 5, 2010 18:49:43 GMT -5
' The rubbish on the streets, which appears to be twice as much since yesterday, the human excrement, that from before semi-liquefied by the torrential downpour of rain, mushy or runny, the excrement being evacuated at this very minute by these men and women as we pass, fills the air with the most awful stench, like a dense mist through which it is only possible to advance with enormous effort. In a square surrounded by trees, with a statue in the middle, a pack of dogs is devouring a man's corpse. He must have died a short while ago, his limbs are not rigid, as can be seen when the dogs shake them to tear from bone the flesh caught between their teeth. A crow hops around in search of an opening to get close to the feast. ' (Pg. 263)
I found this section of the book to be really disturbing, as it described the city and how civilization has changed ever since the blindness hit the whole city. The organizational system of the city fell down as the people were no longer able to work and keep the system working. With such changes, the public services were no longer functioning leaving the people without water and electricity. These changes forced people to leave their homes and as there was no water or such, and if that wasn't enough, they were blind, which leads to what the author is describing the city as. The second part of the quote refers to a powerful scene in which the degeneration of the civilization is clearly stated. A corpse being eaten by dogs. This whole section was really shocking and made it comprehensible the state in which people were. It really impacted me to read that part, as it demonstrated how the hunger was everywhere on the city and how it was going back to primitive instincts.
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jmora
New Member
Posts: 4
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Post by jmora on Sept 5, 2010 19:21:03 GMT -5
"The epidemic, or whatever it might be, to an arrow shot into the air which upon reaching its highest point, pauses for a moment as if suspended, and then begins to trace its obligatory descending curve, which, God willing, and with this invocation the commentator returned to the trivality of human discourse and to the so-called epidemic" (pg. 121) Talkes about the fight they are facing towards the disease. It is a metaphore that says whenever we think we are in progress, like as if they can actually get their sight back. Faith mantains them as a group that sometime they will get to see again. It is a fight that they cant win, that is why it is compared the disease with the arrow because it goes up but in the end it will fall. Everyone would fail in the end.
Jose Ignacio Mora
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Post by sofirosales on Aug 26, 2011 22:31:14 GMT -5
"...first, the lights will be kept on at all times, any attempt to tamper with the switches will be useless, they wont work, second, leaving the building without authorization will mean instant death, third, in each ward there is a telephone that can be used only to requisition from outside fresh supplies for purposes of hygiene and cleanliness, fourth, the internees will be responsible for washing their own clothes by hand, fifth, it is recommended that ward representatives should be elected, this is a recommendation rather than an order... tenth, in the event of a fire getting out of control, whether accidentally or on purpose, the firemen will not intervene, twelfth, in the case of death, whatever the cause, the internees will bury the corpse in the yard without any formalities.." pg. 43.
This quote caught mi attention because to me what is being said here is terrible. What i understand with this is that the government tries to protect the people outside but they have no interest in the blind people. These people in my point of view need more assistance than the others. The government doesn't care about them and they will let the blind die in there. They are treating them as if they were animals or it is as if suddenly they are not humans anymore. These rules, in my perspective can't be applied to human, its like letting them die in misery. So far of what we know the government has controlled the city pretty well, but in the treatment of the blind people they were wrong. This quote surprised me because of this.
SOFIA ROSALES
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