Change In Blindness By Jose Saramago

One thing in life that will never change or go away is change. Change is a good thing because human beings are always evolving. If mankind stayed the same, humans could never mature or grow as people. Change is not always easy, in fact, change can be hard. In the novel Blindness by Jose Saramago, the doctor's wife undergoes change, and evolves from a timid follower to a courageous leader throughout four defining moments: when the doctor's wife lies about being blind to be with her husband, when she volunteers to go with other women to 'pay for their food', kills the leader of a gang group, and leads her group to escape the asylum.

First, the doctor's wife becomes more courageous when she lies to medical personnel just so she can be with

When the wife sets out to look for food, she gets lost along the way back to her group during a thunderstorm, and breaks down and cries. A wild dog suddenly appears, but instead of attacking the wife like other the other wild dogs, it begins to lick her tears from her face. “One of them licks her face, perhaps it had been used to drying tears since it was a puppy. The woman strokes its head, runs her hand down it’s drenched back, and she weeps the rest of her tears embracing the dog” (Cole 2006). The dog of tears was not raised to lick tears; it sympathizes with her. The dog gives her the courage to continue to find her group. The dog is similar to the doctor’s wife because they both have their humanity and sight. The narrator describes the dog as “an animal of human quality. The dog even “baptizes” the other characters when they return with food. “Holy water of the most efficacious variety, descended directly from heaven, the splashes helped the stones to transform themselves into persons” (Cole 2006). This dog helps restore the lost humanity among the group, and also helps the doctors wife keep her humanity. The dog of tears protects the doctor’s wife by “barking furiously when anyone outside shook the door hard” and “blocking the entrance” (Cole 2006). The dog and wife both think of others before themselves and have compassion and empathy, and have not succumb to the effects of the “white