Book Review on Blindness

The goal of this paper is to review the book titled “Blindness” by Jose Saramago that was originally written in Portuguese in 1995, and translated into English by Giovanni Pontiero in 1997. I will examine why the book was written and what the main themes of the book are. I will discuss the aspects of the novel that I found to be most interesting and thought-provoking. Then I will discuss how it relates to criminology and why individuals should care about that novel.

I believe this novel was written to provide social commentary on a situation that affects many societies of the world. I believe the physical blindness that occurs within the book reflects how society is often blind to issues that are affecting many individuals. With the physical blindness that occurs within the novel, individuals could no longer form a preconceived judgment of what the individual will be like just based upon their skin color, ethnicity, or social class. However, in society today, individuals judge others and form opinions just based upon these issues. I think the novel wanted to point out this issue to open individuals’ minds to what is really going on.

The doctor’s wife is the only one that doesn’t seem to be inflicted by the blindness that sweeps throughout the community. I believe she represents the individuals within society who realize there are social problems that need to be fixed. The individuals that are blinded are placed into the asylum and are forced to stay there. I believe that this situation shows that at times the overall group is more important at times than the individual or small group of people. Those in power didn’t want the blindness to inflict anymore individuals so those who had been blinded were rounded up and placed into the asylum area. Eventually it comes to the point where those in power no longer provide assistance to the blind, thus they have deemed the group no longer important. This thought could be applied to society and how the government and those in power often don’t care about certain groups and if these groups have enough resources to function.

Conflict theory arises within this book when the institutions begin to be the ones who create crimes. Those in power move all of the inflicted blind individuals into the asylum, which turns it into a situation of those who have resources and those who have little to no resources. The blinded individuals receive rations on food and other needed products. This results in there being individuals within the asylum who have the resources and those who don’t, thus creating a similar situation as what is going on in society.

Social disorganization occurs when the individuals are forced to move into the asylum, thus breaking down the social relationships that the individuals had within their community. This results in more crime, and causes individuals to band together to form gangs and then
commit rapes.

Differential Association Theory arises when the blinded individuals are lumped together and some individuals begin to commit crimes. This causes individuals within the same group to be more likely to commit crimes. It comes to the point where the group does not consider crimes to be delinquent behaviors thus it is socializing the members of the group to commit more criminal offenses.

The theory of anomie becomes relevant when there is the breakdown of the social organizations and the asylum becomes an area that has a lack of norms and law enforcement. I would suggest that the blinded individuals who commit crimes were being innovators because they believed that the legitimate ways of receiving resources were no longer available to them. This causes the individuals to be more deviant in their actions in order to reach their goals and or gain access to resources.

Rational choice theory can be looked at when addressing this novel when it comes to individuals and their decisions whether or not to commit the crimes. It is especially noticeable with the women when they wish to receive food begin allowing themselves to be gang-raped by the thugs who control the rations of food. The women see this situation as even though they are gang-raped, the benefits of gaining food and other resources are much better than the pain of the situation.

I thought the most interesting part of the novel was that the one woman, the doctor’s wife, did not go blind, but had to act like she was. I believe she serves as a representation of the ray of hope that exists even when society appears to be at its worst. She was never affected with the blindness and it probably would have been easier for her to escape the entire situation, but she ends up helping her husband, and her friends that she meets along the way. She assists in an attempt to rebuild the lives of her group and then suddenly the blindness disappears from the entire area and people are able to see again.