1984 and Blindness: Conflicting Views of Government

            José Saramago and George Orwell writes on the roles of government. In Saramago’s novel, Blindness, the government is realistic through its actions and behaviors whereas, in 1984, Orwell creates a totalitarian government that goes beyond the borders of reality, Although, the novel’s governments have similarities, the two are still uniquely different. Saramago effectively constructs a realistic world, while Orwell’s fictitious government is unbelievable.

            In the beginning of 1984, Orwell immediately introduces the readers to two of main characters: Winston Smith and Big Brother. Winston is the main character that works for the Ministry of Truth, but is heavily overshadowed by Big Brother and the Party. Big Brother is described as “[…] the face of a man of about forty-five, with a heavy black mustache and ruggedly handsome features” (Orwell 5). This description belongs to a large poster at the end of the hallway from where Winston stands. The poster had eyes that seem to follow a person’s movements. And beneath it ran the caption, “BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING” (Orwell 5).

            Big Brother is the leader and face of the Party. Winston recalls his first memory of when Big Brother appeared. When he first heard of Big Brother, “he thought it must have been at some time in the Sixties” (Orwell 33). It must be known that Winston Smith was alive and mature before the Party came into existence. With Winston working in the Ministry of Truth, he knows how the Party has glorified the life of Big Brother. He worked long enough to notice that Big Brother’s “[…] exploits had been gradually pushed backwards in time until already they extended into the fabulous world of the forties and the thirties, when the capitalists in their strange cylindrical hats still rode through the streets of London in great gleaming motor-cars or horse carriages with glass sides” (Orwell 33). The Party pushed further and further back into history, making Big Brother appear as an ultimate hero.

            The world is separated into three different nations or superstates: Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia. Each superstate is composed of several different countries. For instance, Oceania is made up of Australia, New Zealand, the British Isles (renamed to Airstrip One), and continents North America and South America. The three superstates are continuously in war with each other. It seems that Oceania is allied with one nation, then those two take on that one single nation. It is seen that there are multiple times where in the middle of the war Oceania repeatedly switches from Eurasia to Eastasia. During the Two Minutes Hate, Winston and his coworkers are gathered in front of a telescreen. It shows a man named Emmanuel Goldstein who was a traitor to Oceania and “[…] the Enemy of the People” (Orwell 13). It was said that Goldstein was more hated than both Eurasia and Eastasia, because “Oceania was at war with one of these Powers it was generally at peace with the other” (Orwell 15).

The Party is the overall name of the totalitarian regime ruling Oceania. The Party has butchered so much to make themselves an insurmountable figure. Since the Party controlled everything, they have the power to change anything that can be changed. For example, it was said in Party’s books “[…] that the Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing. There was never any evidence” (Orwell 33). This shows that Winston clearly remembers airplanes when he was a child, however the Party says different. Winston is very familiar with the Party’s actions like this one, because he is old enough to remember life before the Party and he is employed by them as well.

Pursuing this further, within the Party there are three departments that make up the government. The Ministry of Truth, the Ministry of Peace, the Ministry of Love, and the Ministry of Plenty has the responsibility when it comes to the upkeep of Oceania. The Ministry of Truth controls the “news, entertainment, education, and fine arts” (Orwell 8). The Ministry of Peace controls the dealings of war. The Ministry of Love “maintains law and order” (Orwell 8). The Ministry of Plenty is “responsible for economic affairs” (Orwell 8). This description of the ministries shows the government’s heavy intrusion into the personal lives of the citizens. Since the Party controls news, entertainment, education, and fine arts, they can control the influences on people’s lives, especially each new generation. Like when Winston is invited into the Parsons’ flat to help fix a plumbing issue, the children are heavy supporters of the Party. They are more patriotic than their father, Tom Parsons, who worked with Winston in the Ministry of Truth and was the ideal poster boy for the Party. Tom’s daughter even got her father arrested for thoughtcrime and sent to the Ministry of Love. It is very ironic that the place where people are jailed and tortured, is named after love. Technically, is this the government’s way of loving their citizens? By punishing them?

The Party has telescreens in every house and in every building. The telescreen “[…] could be dimmed, but there was no way of shutting it off completely” (Orwell 6). Telescreens records even the slightest sound that is made. Specifically, the machine can detect sounds “above the level of a very low whisper” (Orwell 6). This is a complete invasion of privacy, but not to the Party. When Winston first arrived to his flat he saw “[…] a helicopter skimmed down between the roofs, hovered for an instant… and darted away again... It was the police patrol, snooping into people's windows” (Orwell 6). This shows the level of privacy that the citizens have.

The party even controls the reproduction of its citizens. They a started organization called the Junior Anti-Sex League. The league “advocates complete celibacy for both sexes” (Orwell 57). All children in this society were to be born via artificial insemination. The text even states that the Party was “trying to kill the sex instinct, or if it could not be killed, then distort it and dirty it” (Orwell 57). When Winston and his ex-wife, Katharine, tried to have children naturally, she gave sex the nickname “our duty to the Party” (Orwell 58).

In reality, this society is unreal. In the real world, the government does not care that much about what a person is doing in their private time. If anything, the government only watch certain people of interest, but not to the Party’s standards. The Party has all this control over the lives of the people based off of fear and lies. There are people who have a high regard for history and would not let anyone or anything change it. There have actually been a legitimate rebel group, who would be against the party. It seems as if the Party wants to get rid of human nature and instinct out of humans while keeping humans. They know this is an impossible feat, so they do the same as the do with sex: they dirty it.

In Saramago’s Blindness, a well-functioning society turns into an Orwellian one in a matter of moments. When an epidemic of blindness occurs, the Ministry of Health starts gathering the individuals who were reported to be blind. This included the doctor's wife, who lied about being blind. The Ministry officials had to make a decision on where to keep the infected. The facilities they had available were a mental hospital, several abandoned military installations, an almost complete trade fair building, and a liquidated supermarket. According to the President of the Commission of Logistics and Security, these were the only places available and as expected they chose the mental hospital. They said it was “[…] the place that offers the best facilities” because it has a perimeter wall and “two separate wings, one to be used for those who are actually blind, the other for those suspected of having the disease” (Saramago 38).

The Ministry left the military to tend to the blind internees. When the first group arrived to the hospital, the military gave them fifteen rules to abide by to ensure the safety of themselves and the others on the outside. The eighth, ninth, and tenth rule can be considered the most memorable. It goes as stated, “eighth, the burning should be done in the inner courtyards or in the exercise yard, ninth, the internees are responsible for any damage caused by these fires, tenth, in the event of a fire getting out of control, whether accidentally or on purpose, the firemen will not intervene” (Saramago 43). One other rule tells them to bury the dead internees with no formalities, in case of death. This shows the regard that the government has for the blind. If someone die, bury them and keep on moving.

The same individual who gave the rules said this, “the Government and the Nation expect every man and woman to do their duty” (Saramago 44) This would remind the reader of that moment in 1984, when Winston’s wife called sex “their duty to the Party.” The government expects them to comply to these rules even though they seem immoral. This can be compared to the Party. Both governments have a sense of immorality when it comes to the treatment of the citizens.

As the novel progresses, more and more internees are introduced into the hospital until the facility is filled to the brim with blind people. Soon after, the hospital one of the places in which no human should live in. Conditions are so bad that the novel plainly says, “[…] no imagination, however fertile and creative in making comparisons, images and metaphors, could aptly describe the filth here” (Saramago 131). But in the best way to sum it up, there was an “endless carpet of trampled excrement” (Saramago 132).

Speaking more on the conditions, it turns the statement was true. The text has no real description of the conditions, it only told what was there. There was a “fetid smell that came from the lavatories… the accumulated body odour of two hundred and fifty people… who wore clothes that got filthier by the day, who slept in beds where they had frequently defecated” (Saramago 134). Just by telling what can be seen, gives the reader enough to form their own visual image of what the situation looks like. At this moment, these conditions destroy those of Victory Mansions in 1984, where the “hallway smelt of boiled cabbage and old rag mats,” the lift seldom worked, and “the electric current was cut off during daylight hours” (Orwell 5).

When the blind internees finally escaped the hospital, due to a fire outbreak, they found the military gone and the outside world is not like the one before they went blind. It turns out that the rest of the country went blind with them. The government and society had crashed. There was no one to govern the citizens if the individuals in charge were blind like the rest of them. The streets reflected life in the mental hospital, “along the road… men were satisfying the urgent need felt each morning by their bladder, the women preferred the privacy of abandoned cars. Softened by the rain, the excrement, here and there, was spread all over the pavement” (Saramago 224).

The citizens who were blind while on the outside of the mental hospital became nomadic people. These nomadic groups travel around from place to place, looking for food and a place to sleep, then move on to the next place in search of supplies. These nomads, who live in the city, from Blindness can be compared to the Proles from 1984. Both people live in treacherous conditions, but, of course, the blind nomads lived in unsanitary conditions. But to compete with that, the Proles had bombs dropped on them daily.

Like mentioned earlier, Saramago was much more realistic than Orwell was. The fall of a government and society was seen. This shows that governments aren’t almighty like the almighty Party is. Saramago shows the flaws in human’s society whereas Orwell’s society is an impenetrable fortress. However, both governments do have some similarities like how badly people were treated. But Blindness was just several steps above 1984.

Blindness brought real life ideas into the mind of the reader. For example, when the soldiers began firing rounds into the crowd of blind internees, because they were scared of the sight, it was said that “if we are still in an age when a soldier has to account for the bullets fired, they will swear on the flag that they acted in legitimate defence” (Saramago 83). This can be compared to modern day police, who shoot and kill innocent citizens, then claim that it was it self-defense. On page 69, the word “interned” was first used, the thought about the Japanese internment camps was immediately brought to mind.

When over two hundred people was forced into the mental hospital, “[…] as if pushed from the outside by a bulldozer. A number of them fell and were trampled underfoot… new arrivals gradually began filling the spaces between the beds… like a ship caught in a storm that has finally managed to reach port” (Saramago 67). The can be related to how stuffed and cramped African slave ships were. Lastly, how the government and military mistreated those blind internees can mirror how mentally ill patients were treated in mental hospitals. They lived in poor conditions, were tested on, and was separated from society. This comparison becomes much greater when it is seen that these blind internees were placed in a mental hospital. This shows the true realism displayed in Blindness.

In closing, the world created by José Saramago is closer to reality than George Orwell. When reading closely, whether it be intentional or not, Saramago touches on a few social issues that the real world faces. He shows how quickly the world can stop just by adding an unexpected variable. The impregnable society shown by Orwell was unbelievable, because the human spirit would not fall so easily.  By comparing and contrasting the two novels, it is seen that Blindness is more palpable than 1984.

Works Cited

Orwell, George. 1984. New York: New American Library, 1949. Print.

Saramago, José. Blindness. Trans. Giovanni Pontiero. Portugal: Caminho, 1995. Print.