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This test consists of 5 short answer questions, 10 short essay questions, and 1 (of 3) essay topics.

Short Answer Questions

1. What item does an anonymous person wish was around near the end of Chapter 8?

2. Why does the Thief believe he is in his dire situation?

3. Who is not among the first group of inmates to arrive in quarantine?

4. Which of the following is not a location considered by the government for the quarantine location

5. What tertiary character is among those killed when the soldiers open fire?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the First Man's Wife's reaction to her husband when she comes home.

2. What is the Doctor's Wife's reaction to her husbands hypothesis about his blindness?

3. Who in the first ward dies in the hail of fire?

4. By this point, is the dispersal of food effectively organized by Chapter 7?

5. What does the Doctor do when his Wife tells him that a Man with an Eye-Patch has arrived in the ward?

6. What is the Thief's state of mind at the beginning of Chapter 2?

7. What news does the Minister of Health have for the Doctor when he calls back?

8. How are conditions in quarantine affected as more inmates arrive throughout Chapter 5?

9. Describe the asylum dormitory.

10. Describe the painting the Man with the Eye-Patch mentions at the end of Chapter 8.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Food - and the search for it - becomes a destructive force in the land of the blind, leading to distrust, dehumanization, and sometimes death:

Part 1) Discuss the distribution of food in the first days of quarantine? Before the Thugs arrive, is the process of food distribution fair and straight forward? In what ways are the baser qualities of humankind on display even in these passages?

Part 2) As the Thugs arrive at quarantine, how does the balance of power shift regarding food? Discuss the quarantine is transformed into a Hobbesian nightmare with food as the sole objective?

Part 3) After quarantine, what instances of death occur as a result of the search for food in the city? In the era of white sickness, can humanity be safe as it seeks to subsist.

Essay Topic 2

Jose Saramago's narrative voice is unique in its familiarity with the reader and its presentation of the story in a colloquial, conversational format, one that forgoes many of the standards of traditional novel writing:

Part 1) Discuss the effect of Saramago's frequent use of the first person plural - we - to engage the reader as a confidante of sorts. How does this alter the traditional relationship between the third-person omniscient narrator and the reader?

Part 2) Examine Saramago's frequent usage of hypothetical situations - such as that of the Chronicler walking out among the desperate hordes of the other wards - and allusion to proverbs. What purpose do these devices serve in the narrator's dissection of events?

Part 3) Why do you believe that Saramago uses no quotation marks and generally embeds his dialogue into large paragraphs rather than breaking it up?

Essay Topic 3

Discuss the use of violence in the novel. Is it seen as a purely evil force, or is its function in the novel more ambiguous? Why is it presented in such graphic detail? Write about each of the following violent episodes:

1. The gang-rape of the first ward women by the Thugs.

2. The murder of the Leader of the Thugs by the Doctor's Wife.

3. The burning down of the asylum.

(see the answer keys)

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