Por que reler ou escrever um ensaio sobre a cegueira hoje? Porque vivemos em uma era de distopias silenciosas. Durante a pandemia de COVID-19, muitas pessoas lembraram de Saramago: o isolamento, o medo do contágio, a desconfiança no outro, a falência das instituições. Não ficamos cegos literalmente, mas ficamos cegos para o futuro, para o coletivo, para a ciência.
Against this abyss, Saramago places the novel’s singular anomaly: the Doctor’s Wife, who alone retains her sight. Her role transcends mere plot convenience; she becomes the novel’s moral and philosophical anchor. Initially, she pretends to be blind to remain with her husband, an act of love that quickly transforms into a burden of witness. She alone sees the filth, the rapes, the corpses. But significantly, she does not intervene as a superhero. Instead, she acts as a memory and a conscience. It is she who secretly steals food for her ward, who cleans the women after their assaults, who ultimately kills the gang leader with a pair of scissors. This act of violence is not cathartic but tragic—a recognition that in a world of universal blindness, sight becomes a weapon. The Doctor’s Wife represents what Saramago believes is the only authentic response to moral blindness: an imperfect, costly, and continuous act of care. She cannot restore sight to anyone, but she can restore dignity, one small gesture at a time. Her final line in the novel, upon hearing that her own eyes have clouded over—“I don’t think we went blind, I think we were blind”—recasts the entire epidemic. Physical blindness is merely the externalization of a pre-existing spiritual condition: the willful refusal to see the suffering of others. Ensaio sobre a cegueira
A frase central do livro, dita por uma das personagens, resume a tese de Saramago: Por que reler ou escrever um ensaio sobre a cegueira hoje
Ensaio sobre a cegueira " (Blindness), by Nobel laureate José Saramago, is a chilling allegory of human nature and societal collapse Não ficamos cegos literalmente, mas ficamos cegos para
Just as hope seems lost, everyone miraculously regains their sight. The doctor's wife concludes that they were never really blind, but were "blind people who can see," yet chose not to truly "see" their own humanity.
