Imagine a world, a world where everyone was blind. Imagine they had been blind for generations, and had completely lost the concept of sight from their collective memories. Imagine you got there, and were stuck with them. How would you fit into their culture? In a world of the blind, wouldn't the one eyed be king? Here's how HG Wells predicts such a situation will go. My analysis, read below.
Quick Summary
The story is set on the slopes of a fictitious mountain in Ecuador. It is said that the valley by the mountain was once a safe haven for Ecuadorian settlers fleeing from Spanish overlords. There was an earthquake, which reshaped the surrounding mountains , and cut off the valley from future travelers. Since the land was extremely fertile, the isolated people prospered for years, even when a disease struck them, that made them lose their sight, and ensured their kids were born blind. As the disease spread to the entire community over generations, the people's other senses sharpened, and soon they had forgotten what sight was, and had adapted completely to a life without sight. They no longer had eye lashes, and stopped moving their eyelids as well.
A mountaineer trying to scale the mountain slips and falls, and finds himself in a valley cut off from the rest of the world. He descends further into the valley to find a village, where houses are without windows, and all the paths are bounded by curbs. When he discovers that everyone is blind in the village, he tells himself that "In the country of the blind, the one eyed man is king." and decides to rule this village of people. Unfortunately, since the people have no concept of sight, they do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. He becomes frustrated, but the villagers manage to calm him, and he sees no option but to submit to their way of life.
Given that he believes in sight, he is derided as delusional and made a slave and assigned to work for one of the villagers - Yakob. He soon gets attracted to Yakob's daughter Medina-Sarote. Since she doesn't have smooth features the blind find attractive, she is considered ugly, but to Nunez, she seems beautiful. He wins her confidence and they soon fall in love. He tries explaining sight to her, but she dismisses it as his imagination. When he asks for her hand in marriage, it is opposed by the entire village due to his delusions about sight. The village doctor claims it is a disease of the brain due to the eyes, so removing them will cure him of his delusions.
Understandably, Nunez says no. But in the end when even Medine-Sarote tries to convinces him, hre reluctantly agrees to the operation. Before the operation, he goes out to see the world for one last time, but then his feet guide him out of the village and then up the slopes to find a way to escape the valley. By the end of the day, he has climbed high into the mountain, and rests, all cut and bruised, but happy to see the stars and know he has escaped the valley.
Analysis
This story is an interesting take on the system of belief, and scepticism. When we as a people trust only what we can experience through our senses, and are sceptical of everything else, it often leads us to become conservative and kills our hunger for knowledge or expanding our boundaries. In this sense, one might read the story in the light that sight is equivalent to understanding and comprehension.
We say, "I see" when we comprehend something, and thus seeing, or sight, in itself is representative of a thirst for knowledge.The villagers, without sight, have no thirst for expanding on what they know, and are rigid about their world-view. As they are blind, they have no concept of light, and live in the darkness,as a part of their own narrow-minded existence. Nunez can be seen as knowledge from the heavens - read either as a biblical angel sent to impart knowledge, or the apple that falls on Newton's head. Only a 'blind' person, with no urge to seek out the unknown, would turn their face away from a gift like that.
In any society, most people are occupied with the day to day pursuit of sustaining existence. They do not have the time or the inclination to ask why things are the way they are. They do not like change, and redefining the way they see the world. There are revolutionary ideas introduced by a rare few, and even they are quashed before finally being accepted. We can see here that Nunez is that revolutionary in this story, with his concept of sight, for which he is mocked, called delusional, and made slave. He is not a conformist, and in conflict with the conservative society.
Lastly, the title of the story is set as 'The country of the blind', referencing the poem by CS Lewis. The statement, often repeated in the story, means that when no one can see the way, the one who can see even part of the way will lead. HG Wells turns this notion on its head and suggests that power does not lie in strength (of sight, or anything else), but wherever the majority believes it to lie. If the concept of sight itself loses power, it doesn't matter that Nunez has the advantage of sight - he is without power.
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