The runs on the banks also reveal the general crisis in confidence that occurs in a world obviously tipping over the edge. After the government has changed strategy several times and begins patently lying to the people, it becomes clear that hope in them is entirely ill-placed. The government and financial systems also become more and more unstable, but mostly in terms of a pervasive crisis of confidence. In terms of traffic, it is easy to see that as soon as everyone is struck blind it become increasingly dangerous to drive or even to be near cars. These are the infrastructural elements on which the web of interpersonal relationships depends to live in a modernized society, but all fall apart as soon as sight is lost.

Secondly, the larger scale of infrastructure of society breaks down, such as transportation networks, government and media. We can also look at the minimum criteria of health and sanitation that is disregarded in the wards as soon as it becomes untenable or difficult to maintain these standards. He cannot be the only child in this position and represents the decay of the kinship unity that is often considered the minimum unity of society. To take just two examples, the complete decay of the familial unit, as is exemplified by the boy with the squint who is forever separated from his mother. This is not the only example - the blind treat each other in ways that would be unheard of in a sighted context. The first step of this societal unraveling is the exclusion of the blind from the category of human. The language used to describe the blind in these scenes is inhuman and the soldiers react to them as if they were not humans, but rather animals or monsters of some kind. An attachment of soldiers also massacres a group of blind coming to claim their food. On several occasions they are killed almost indiscriminately as is the case with the killing of the car thief who is trying to ask for medicine for his infected leg. Take for example the treatment of blind internees by the soldiers who are ostensibly there to guard them. People suddenly become unable to interact as they did before and this precipitates a change for the worse. In the novel, this consequence can be seen on two levels.įirst, the interpersonal web of interactions unravels. It is so fragile, in fact, that the absence of one faculty, sight in this case, can cause the whole thing to unravel. This is to say that the interpersonal web of interactions in which we live on a daily basis is actually quite tenuous, even though it seems stable. One of the most predominant themes in Blindness is the fragility of society.

Blindness / Seeing by José Saramago