Jose Saramago Blindness

The main point of this story, Tangerine, by Edward Bloor, is how the people who are looked down upon see from different points of view. An example of this is the main character, Paul, who is considered blind by many and is often looked down upon in society, however, he often sees what others do not and has excessive knowledge of the world around him. Even though he sees everything, he does not say what he knows and others do not ask him, for they believe he has no knowledge of the problems. After moving to Tangerine, he sees his brother doing horrible things and his parents none the wiser. His friend suffers at the hands of his brother and is eventually killed, and afterwards, Paul feels much guilt for the words unsaid. Since Paul is often looked down upon, he notices facts and clues society does not, however he fears saying something, in which causes his friend to be murdered.

Hospitals are meant to help some people heal physically and others mentally. In the novel One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey published in 1962, readers are introduced to a mental hospital that has goals that do not align with helping people. Within the hospital, characters with varied personalities and opinions are intermixed with three main characters playing specific roles with supporting characters close by. With the characters’ motivations, themes develop such as the emasculation of the men in the hospital by an oppressive nurse. Symbols, such as laughter and the “combine”, are also pertinent to themes as the readers watch the men transitioning from being oppressed to being able to stand up for themselves causing change in hospital policy.

“There are too many people, and too few human beings.” (Robert Zend) Even though there are many people on this planet, there are very few civilized people. Most of them are naturally savaged. In the book, Lord of the Flies, by William Golding, boys are stranded on an island far away, with no connections to the adult world. These children, having no rules, or civilization, have their true nature exposed. Not surprisingly, these children’s nature happens to be savagery. Savagery can clearly be identified in humans when there are no rules, when the right situation arouses, and finally when there is no civilization around us.

The turning point of the story is when the doctor started to act mean towards the little girl, and thinking to himself how he enjoyed it. The little girl knocking his glasses off and trying to claw at his eyes was probably the final straw for him. All he was trying to do was help her, and all she was doing was making it even more difficult. In my opinion I believe she was the reason he began to enjoy acting mean towards her, so his thoughts could have been and probably were a normal thought of someone who was trying to do their job, and just got stuck with a difficult patient.

The doctor then stands up and heads towards the window, now facing the light. The nurse now becomes a metaphor for society and how most people think, and him turning her back towards her and facing the light shows him beginning to turn his back on society and starting to question and reject it, thus becoming enlightened. Every time the doctor starts to critically think out loud, the camera goes from a medium shot to a medium close up of the back of his head. He then begins to talk about how he sees Janet's "real face" or her actual self. This scene was after Janet broke down to the doctor, questioning who says what is attractive and normal, and saying a powerful quote "This state is not God." This clearly affected the doctor and got him thinking and realizing that she is a human being. Earlier in this scene, the nurse refers to Janet as "Patient 307" rather than her own name. This shows how society can easily dehumanize people when we do not deem them functioning members of society, for there is nothing more demeaning then being referred to as a number as we have seen in terrible times such as the Holocaust referring to the concentration camp members. The nurse, remaining in the dark, says "It's easier for me to think of her as human when her face is covered up".

It is the innate darkness and leaning towards the evil that disposes us to committing acts of brutality and insensitivity.

The argument that “the greatest threat to one’s own humanity is indifference to the suffering of others” is accurate, because compassion for each other is what brings one’s humanity closer together.

What is it that separates us from animals? Is it our intelligence? Our anatomy? Or is there something more, deep inside each of us that distinguishes humanity from brute nature? To speaker Elie Wiesel, caring for others is what makes humans exhibit humanity. On April 12, 1999, Elie Wiesel delivered his speech called “The Perils of Indifference” before President Clinton and the entirety of Congress. Wiesel’s speech focuses on the atrocities that had occurred in the past century, which he claimed were products of indifference, as he attempts to explain why humanity displays apathy to such tragedies. After growing up as a young Jewish during the Holocaust, Wiesel has seen his share of inhumanity from Schutzstaffel, or SS Soldiers. Elie Wiesel’s reasoning behind delivering such an emotionally charged speech is to make his audience aware of the apathy occurring globally. Throughout his speech to Congress, Wiesel uses the persuasive elements ethos, pathos and logos to convey to his audience that it is empathy that makes us human.

Humanity as a whole is plagued with the misfortune of being trapped perpetually in a world filled with hate and violence. However, those residing in this world should be able to see potentiality of reducing day-to-day dangers. This is especially true when considering how pivotal the individual is, for it all begins with one person. Humans can be dangerous creatures; look no further than to the media which recounts awful injustices committed by groups like ISIS, Al Qaeda, or even the IRA. People are designed intricately and uniquely in such a way that no single being is identical. The way an individual acts, talks, laughs, dances, eats, and so much more varies from person to person. Malcolm Gladwell tackles the psychology behind an individual’s

So long as mankind inhabits the Earth will there be war, death, and destruction. Since the beginning of time, there have been opposites. Even before man had the ability to rationalize theories were there unalike aspects of life. Every quality depends on the existence of its own opposite, or it would not at all exist. Therefore it goes without saying that suffering and death (two entities closely associated with war) are inevitable. These attributes, both negative in nature, are inescapable ills of this world. “What he meant, of course, was that there would always be wars, that they were as easy to stop as glaciers.” Kurt Vonnegut’s account of the destructiveness of warfare desensitizes and dehumanizes Billy Pilgrim in his novel, Slaughterhouse-Five, and in a greater sense, humanity as a whole. In short, Slaughterhouse-Five follows a man through his ability to cope with life before,

The cruel nature and intentions of people can either hurt or harm individuals or it can bring about resilience and determination. In the novel To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee revealed that humans often have other motives in life; some are born to be evil in nature, some are naturally innocent and then there are some that are born to protect the innocent. Lee utilized a variety of symbols and themes that correlated with each other and thus had the ability to create questions in the minds of the readers. Are humans calculatedly cruel or is there some moral good in each of us? The impiety of a few can create a movement, imprison the innocent or reveal the sincerity of others.

The story “Cathedral” demonstrates that lack of sight does not necessarily prevent one from perceiving things as they are, or live their life to the fullest. In the story, a middle-age blind man, who is a friend to the narrator’s wife, and used to be her boss at one point, visits the narrator and his wife. The narrator has never interacted with blind people before, and all he knew about blind people was what he had seen on television. Blind people are stereotypically portrayed on television as slow moving, dull people, who never laugh. Based on this perception, the narrator was reluctant to meet the blind man and doubted whether they were going to connect. This is evident when the narrator states, “I wasn’t enthusiastic about his visit. He was no one I knew. And his being blind bothered me” (Carver 1).

Saramago’s novel clearly illustrates themes that describe the importance of the awareness of others, in terms of feeling oppressed by fear, lack of trust, dehumanization, and segregation. He describes in full detail the importance of the government’s involvement in the lives of the blind victims, which allows

     Hemingway's "The Killers" illustrates that unexplained violence is an integrated part of society.  To acknowledge the cruelties of life is to come to terms with horrifying events that can not be denied.  A person may lack the maturity to cope with everyday life if they do not realize that evil can exist in any given society.

Vision challenge or impairment is when a person’s degree of seeing is very low and the affected person requires assistance in order to carry out daily routine. Significantly, for one to qualify as visually impaired there must be prove that a person cannot undertake duties by himself without necessary assistance. For a person to qualify as a visually challenged, there must be a prove that the affected eyes cannot be conventionally treated. Visual challenge cannot be corrected by surgery, refractive measures neither by medication and that is why it is termed as visual impairment. The most rampart causes of visual challenge are trauma, degenerative or congenital means and a variety of diseases. In the society,