CONFLICT

[bernardalvarez]

In the novel “Blindness” by Jose Saramago we are able to identify several conflicts, both internal and external. The first conflict that the author presents is when the first blind man goes blind, starting this weird epidemic that spreads out and makes more and more citizens a victim of it. The loss of sight of everyone in the whole city (with the exception of the doctor’s wife) is what causes all the other problems, creating a place of chaos. When the epidemic sweeps with most of the city, people become unable of controlling the situation in a proper way, decisions are taken very fast and they have no more time to organize and think of something that would really help. This external conflict is what causes the internal conflict in the novel. Since there is lacks of organization, people with the epidemic are taken to this asylum where they have very few resources and they battle against many things in order to survive. For example they battle against the orders of the leader of ward three, in order to have food. All the time they have to face their new reality, the fact of walking and reaching some where because they have to remember and memorize the number of steps, the fact of being exposed to diseases and bad alimentation, accepting the idea that they have to get used to see always the same color and anything else, and being apart of the people they love and leaving behind a life for which they had struggled in order to keep being part of it, all these things are things that affect each character in their own way. They are all affected in some way, and little by little all of these also helped them to be stronger and gave them strength to keep fighting for their lives in there. Even though at some point they though they couldn’t make it, their strength gave them hope, for example the doctor’s wife many times felt like she couldn’t no longer keep doing everything, but at the end she demonstrated that she was capable of everything. All these conflicts that were included in the novel, at the end had something good to teach.
Bernarda Alvarez

[alegriabaus]

In the novel, there are many different issues and conflicts. The main conflict in the story, is the blindness epidemic. This leads to other conflicts, like how all blind people is forced to live together in a place that can hold less people then there is. And inside this place, again, many conflicts appear, such as the life style in this place. Here people start living like "animal", the bathrooms don't work any more, so there's a permanent stench every were. The people who's inside receives very little food, they are some how discriminated, and people who's outside don't´pay much attention to them. Also, this horrible place, people start fighting among themselves, when some thugs get control of the food. They start by asking everyone to give them their jewelry, and all their valuable things. When everybody is out of belongings, the thugs start for women.

Alegria Baus