Story country of blind
author has used symbolism in this story to describe different attitudes of people. Here,
mountaineer symbolises science and the blind people are symbolic of traditions and
ignorance. Based on this input, what do you think the story conveys?
Answers
Answer:
Explanation:
The predominant themes of H.G. Wells’s “The Country of the Blind” are isolation, disability, and blindness.
The Country of the Blind is isolated from the rest of the world. Those who live there believe, in fact, that they inhabit the world in its entirety. Their village and meadows are surrounded by breast-high boundary walls and, beyond them, terrain so treacherous it hasn’t been traversed since the first settlers of the valley were trapped there by an earthquake fifteen generations ago. In addition to the environmental manifestations, the theme of isolation extends to the separations caused by disability. In life as in stories, people with disabilities are often treated as though they are not full members of society. Rather than seeing the individual, many see the disability—they isolate the person from the context of being human and categorize them instead in the context of disease.
In this story, both the villagers and Nunez judge the other primarily through the lens of disability. Nunez remembers the proverb “in the Country of the Blind, the one-eyed man is king” and attempts to gain rule over the isolated townspeople, all of whom have been blind for generations. Far from thinking him superior, they find nothing of value in the nonsensical ramblings of this outsider. Despite his protestations that they have it all backward, the blind population considers Nunez disabled. In the scenes to follow, the mountaineer fails to acclimate himself to the society developed by the blind citizens. He cannot work in the dark and sleep in the day as they do, and his weaker senses make him seem brash, bumbling, and ineffective. The blind townspeople tend to him as the strong tend to the weak. Rather than leading these people, Nunez is led—often literally—by the sightless.
They believe that Nunez is “an idiot, incompetent thing below the permissible level of man.” When he wishes to marry Medina-saroté, the villagers grow angry at the idea of corrupting their bloodlines. Perhaps because of her own lack of prospects, Medina-saroté listens with interest to Nunez’ imaginative ramblings about his extra sense. However, once her father confers with a doctor and discovers a cure for Nunez’ idiocy and ineptitude—the removal of his eyes—even she asks him to stop speaking nonsensically. The villagers are not just unable to see, they are unwilling to consider sight. The theme of blindness, like isolation, is not limited to its physical form. Here, blindness is also a pernicious form of obstinance.
Themes and Meanings
(COMPREHENSIVE GUIDE TO SHORT STORIES, CRITICAL EDITION)
“The Country of the Blind” aptly reflects H. G. Wells ’s criticism of both human limitations and possibilities. It illustrates his belief in the gradual advancement of humanity through evolution and scientific innovation in which the ideas of liberated individuals intrude on a conformistic society. Núñez, figuratively, is the person of imagination in revolt against his social environment. He is the person who sees among those who do not see. As a symbol of an open mind among conformists, he is the opposite of the author’s perception of the average, admirable citizen. The average citizen to Wells is a person dominated by the everyday routine of obtaining the physical...