Saramago Blindness Quotes

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Man or Animal: the Exploration of the Human Core in the Novel Blindness Joseph Franklin Rutherford, American sectarian leader, once claimed that, “It is conceded by all, that man is the very highest type of all living creatures on the earth. His intelligence is far superior to that of any other earthly being”. This quote supports many people’s beliefs that human beings are superior to other animals, that humans have superior knowledge: logic and reasoning. For example gerbils will eat their young if left alone with them and humans obviously do not. However, the novel Blindness reveals that at heart humans are just like animals- logic and reasoning are thrown out of the window. Nothing matters besides surviving and what people are willing to do to survive. Therefore, the fact that the doctor’s wife kept her…show more content…
This secret reinforces Saramago’s argument and the meaning of the work: there is no limit to what humans will do to survive and that without the nature laws of society- morals, one’s world will quickly deteriorate. Saramago uses scenes in the novel to show that within humans there resides that animalistic trait- , which reveals itself when one is threatened. The doctor’s wife remarks to herself that: “we’re so remote from the world that any day now, we shall no longer know who we are, or even remember our names, and besides, what use would names be to us. No dog recognizes another dog or knows the others by the names they have been given; a dog is identified by its scent and that is how it identifies others. Here we are like another breed of dogs (57). The victims in the asylum are reduced to animals. They have lost the ability of logic and reasoning, which makes humans superior to animals. Names are one of the facts that set humans away from the other animals. Names give people individuality and identity, which distinguishes them from one
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