Two novels Blindness by Jose Saramago and The Road by Cormac McCarty show the society’s breakdown. These two books have much in common. They leave some sense of emptiness, alarm and imperfection of the world. The main point is to see which one gives us more hope that there is nothing lost for the world.
In the beginning of the book by Jose Saramago is the first case of blindness. There is a man, who became blind being in his own car, which stands on the crossroads and waits for the green light. Then the man becomes a victim of a robber who firstly wants to help him, but after steals man’s car. There is a doctor who examines the blind and bewilders about the causes of disease. Doctor becomes blind over books, trying to find in them an explanation of sudden blindness: “What's this, he thought to himself, and suddenly he felt afraid, as if he were about to turn blind any minute now and he already knew it. He held his breath and waited. Nothing happened. It happened a minute later as he was gathering up the books to return them to the bookshelf. First he perceived that he could no longer see his hands, and then he knew he was blind.”(Jose Saramago) The government used measures to struggle with blindness the same as with other epidemics. Government puts all patients in quarantine - the old hospital for the mentally ill. There are blind people left to themselves. Soon the hospital is full - there are almost 150 blind; they do not see them, no one cares; and outside - soldiers who killed on the first day a dozen patients.
Two people - a father and son - are on the road through the ruined (Is it a catastrophe? Is it a war? – It is not important) grey world. They go, wrapped in wet blankets and old pieces of polyethylene, in the truck of the looted supermarket lame on one wheel, drive little they could find in the dead cities. They fast for a few days, freeze, become sick, silent for many hours; because it was hard to breathe dirty, mixed with ashes, air. And speak, in general, not about anything. They follow the road to the ocean to ride out the winter and maybe to find the last good people. Those people who do not eat the same ones.
75 years later, Jose Saramago, Portuguese mockingbird, wrote a novel about blindness, creating novel-metaphor for modern man’s syndrome - blindness: moral blindness and lack of self-consciousness. Saramago treats modern men in the era of globalization and economic development as more infantile and more dependent on technical means of the modern world. They lose not only a connection with nature, but also break personal connection between each other. Economic globalization of the world becomes a new kind of totalitarian power over man. In fact, Saramago’s '' Blindness '' is a hymn to anti-globalism, economic and political anti-totalitarianism. The whole structure of the novel is directed only to one thing: that people finally learned how to perceive the world not by vision, not by standards, not by images, but by their whole creature. They should finally find, see the absolute goodness and love in themselves. Saramago searched and believed that man can see the light within himself only having this Absolute. Saramago's novel consistently destroys all the achievements of civilization, which the modern man is so proud of. The main idea of the novel is not all the horrors of how man can sink in their primitive animal instincts, not all of these scenes of violence. It is to show that the true vision of the person and his identity is not in the external world and not in the external manifestations. It is within each of us. Our civilization can survive, if we keep the sense of absolute goodness.
Nevertheless, '' Blindness '' is a novel of anti-globalization. There's not so much of blindness idea, which appeared several times in the literature and was touched in the Camus ''Plague'', and '' Day of the Triffids '' by Wyndham. There is the idea of moral blindness. Blindness effect is created by the text: in the absence of differentiation of direct and indirect speech, in the absence of proper names of the heroes, which creates a feeling of a misunderstanding of who owns the word. The reader has some time wading through the text blindly, slowly gaining sight. All outward manifestations of success gradually crumble: what we aspire to, and rely on. All cultural values that we think make us better and kinder crumble as well (in the world of the blindness art, music and literature are useless), credit and financial markets collapse, the basis of economic globalization, even the images in the church, the entire raid of civilization collapses (all technological advances are useless). Man returns to the primitive society to find in himself that very core, the point of the Absolute, outside of civilization and culture imposed stereotypes. But at the same time ''Blindness'' is an anti-totalitarian novel. Here is not only political totalitarianism, when all people are isolated from society, are not allowed to set foot following the line, breaking and killing a person. Here is also economic totalitarianism, when a person is a hostage of bank financial relations not only with the state, but also with oil and mining companies and monopolies.
Cormac McCarty made a good job, if not in the original post-apocalyptic story and entourage, but in their submission. This story surprises a reader not by a desperate desire of heroes to move forward but by a remarkable tenacity, luck and vitality. For a reader, the great message is in the possibility in such abstract scenery to see what impact the environment and parental care has in shaping of the personality
Atmosphere of the book is similar to black and white film with colored frames. There is an overall monotony: grey ash from the ubiquitous snow, steel lifeless ocean, leaden sky day, black night, eternal cold. Bright moments are bloodstains on the dirty snow; firelight in the impenetrable night, pistol shot in the bottomless blackness over the dark water. You get used to this crippled colorless background to perceive it clearly from the beginning of the book not to be distracted from the main.
There are nameless heroes, the same as in the novel “Blindness”. It gives the reader an opportunity to think of them as not of specific people, but in general. On the relationship of a father and a son writer symbolically shows how the past creates, teaches, educates and invests itself in the future.
"The Road" - a description of the recovery process of the new humanity, having no memories of its history. Father Son instills their skills, helping to take the first tentative steps into the terrible darkness of this uncharted “rotated” in the world. Writer almost from the beginning does not hide the fate of men. He repeats the fate of the beautiful, bright, wonderful past. Hopeful outcome of the novel is in the boy's face - surviving in spite of and despite humanity, unbroken, taught at past mistakes, subjugated tomorrow.
In conclusion, it is worth saying that “The Road” by Cormac McCarty gives a hope that a society will have the opportunity to become better. New generation, in a face of this boy, will learn the mistakes of a previous generation. It will make a better life and better society in all spheres: in economics, politics and art.
References
McCarthy, Cormac. The road. New York: Alfred A, 2014.
Saramago, José, and Giovanni Pontiero. Blindness : [a novel]. New York: Harcourt, 1998.
