“The blind moved as one would expect of the blind, groping their way, stumbling, dragging their feet, yet as if organised, they knew how to distribute tasks efficiently...” (pg.61)
Throughout the novel, these concentrated and dull structure creates a heavy feeling, therefore, creating a distanced effect as if no one is alive. This helps the author to make readers only focus on the society rather than the characters and keep the story moving. This can also create an effect of blindness on the readers as it feels as if we were actually like as though we were blind, we just hear bunches of voices and see the bigger picture.
From the beginning to the end of the novel, we are never officially introduced to the characters and no names are given. All through the novel, we only refer to the characters as nicknames from the third perspective such as “ the doctor’s wife” “the girl with the glasses” “the thug’s leader”. This can connect to the previous technique of using dense structures and to one of the themes, loss of individuality. By using nameless characters, Saramago may be suggesting that the characters are a type of character as they are defined through their function as a whole group rather than individuals so names are not used. This can create a distant effect on the reader and feel less connected to the characters. Saramago may have also intended to create fragile characters so anyone can disappear but the story goes on.
Saramago and the characters refer to the illness as the “white evil” as the ones who have gone blind are described to only see white and not black as one would expect. At the end of the novel, the doctor’s wife refers to the people as “ Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see but do not see.” (chp.17) Therefore, Saramago may have connected white colour to the blindness to show how spiritually blind people are. As the novel progresses, the characters go from being physically blind to sight, they also go from being existentially blind to sight. We can see more of these references through the characters as the protagonists such as the girl with the glasses and the car thief each begin to question their own ethics and eventually consider the blindness as their moral responsibility.
Thus, Saramago uses bizarre allegory and breaks the common stereotype to create a surreal but interesting alternative reality to demonstrate the fragility of human society. Through the different structuring and writing techniques, Saramago shows that when society collapses, basic human decency and morals are all just an illusion and can easily fade away.