Blind but seeing

One of the final lines of the novel really interested me. On the last page after they all regain their sight, the doctor's wife asks her husband, the doctor, why they all went blind. He replied saying, " I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see." I feel as though this line addresses the major point that Saramago is trying to make throughout the novel. By taking away people's sight, Saramago demonstrates how fragile society and human nature really is and how blind people are to that. The city and its people completely break down during this epidemic and become animalistic and immoral; no different from animals. In the end, only the people who hold onto their beliefs and values, like the doctor and his wife, and the people who are willing to cooperate with one another and see each other through their blindness are the ones who escape and survive. In this way, becoming blind is what enabled some of the characters in this novel to truly see the world around them.