Blindness

Chapters 1-4

Reading Check

1. Omniscient (All chapters)

2. Homer (in the Iliad) (Chapter 3)

3. The Minister of Health (Chapter 4)

Short Answer

1. When the stranger offers to come inside and stay with him until his wife comes home, the First Blind Man starts to worry that the man will take advantage of his helplessness and steal from him. (Chapter 1)

2. Both the Car Thief and the Doctor had a presentiment that they might go blind just before they did. (Chapter 2)

3. After going blind, the Girl With Dark Glasses needed to take a cab home from the hotel. The state would not pay her fare because prostitutes do not pay taxes on their earnings. (Chapter 3)

4. The Car Thief attacks the First Blind Man, blaming him for causing his blindness. The Doctor’s Wife leads the Doctor to the fight, and they separate the two men. (Chapter 4)

Chapters 5-7  

Reading Check

1. Congestion of channels between eye and brain (Chapter 5)

2. Food and organization (Chapter 7)

3. She forgot to wind her watch. (Chapter 7)

Short Answer

1.  A guard tells the doctor only food will be provided, and he must go back inside or be shot. (Chapter 5)

2. They will never go inside the building to get her anyway. (Chapter 6)

3. If the soldiers go blind, they will not be able to aim their guns at the internees. (Chapter 7)

Chapters 8-10

Reading Check

1. A terrified horse (Chapter 8)

2. The Car Thief’s (Chapter 8)

3. The First Blind Man (Chapter 9)

4. Twenty (Chapter 10)

Short Answer

1. The number of cases per day initially was in the hundreds but then declined to dozens, leading the government to conclude the epidemic was on the wane, and the blind might possibly regain their sight. (Chapter 8)

2. The place is filthy, with excrement and urine everywhere, foul body odor, and filthy clothes and beds. The job is too big for one person. (Chapter 9)

Chapters 11-13

Reading Check

1. The stench (Chapter 11)

2. The Old Man With the Eyepatch (Chapter 12)

3. Everyone is blind. (Chapter 13)

Short Answer

1. She saw him go to the bed of the Girl With Dark Glasses and watched them make love. (Chapter 11)

2. She says respectable women are reborn as “whores” (and “whores” are reborn as respectable women). (Chapter 12)

3. She opens a door to the basement and smells it. (Chapter 13)

Chapters 14-17

Reading Check

1. Pride (Chapter 14)

2. In the bathtub (Chapter 15)

3. A Writer and his family (Chapter 15)

4. Organization (Chapter 16)

5. Their eyes are all covered. (Chapter 17)

Short Answer

1. She wants to be reunited with her parents if they should return. (Chapter 14)

2. She dreamt of the Doctor’s Wife’s face. (Chapter 15)

3. Because the corpse is stiff, it is hard for the women to maneuver it around corners in the narrow staircase. (Chapter 16)