The Analysis of Metaphorical Dystopia in José Saramago’s Blindness

دانشگاه ولي عصر

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José Saramago, the Portuguese writer, expresses in the novel Blindness (1995) the fear of dehumanization in the contemporary globalized world wherein the necessity of obedience and conformity of thoughts, behavior and identity may lead to dystopia of totalitarianism. This unfavorable homogenization is represented in Blindness through white blindness that obliterates the individuals’ physical interaction with the world such as colors, forms, things and beings. The contagion, in fact, is related to the individuals’ dependence upon the social constraints and working of power. It is evident in the nature of relationships between the characters and the authorities and also in the interaction of the citizens with each other. Thus, Blindness can be read as a political text demonstrating how mere subjection of the modern man to the power relations can bring about a real dystopia. This feature makes the text suitable to be read in terms of Foucault’s views on power relations. This research attempts to show how power relations are presented in the context of all relationships in the society. The only character who never loses her sight is the doctor’s wife. She is the excluded in the panoptical world of Blindness because she does not follow blindly what power relations impose. In this thesis, a thorough study has been done by presenting how surveillance and panopticism are the apparatus through which the power structures govern the society, and how the humans might resist individually and collectively. Finally, it concludes, through the evidences which the Saramago’s text presents, that after the authority with its means of control and its resulting conventions collapses, humans’ salvation is possible through formation of a collective subjectivity which, regardless of the operation of power relations, assists each other while respecting humans’ singularities.

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