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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 emotion does the Doctor's Wife feel toward the guard?

2. Which two characters in the first ward collect and deliver the valuables?

3. What does the night guard do when the Doctor's Wife sits at the main entrance of the quarantine?

4. When the Doctor's Wife gets out of bed, what does she choose not to put on?

5. In what state do the Doctor and his Wife find their house?

Short Essay Questions

1. Describe the Thugs' ward.

2. In what state do the Doctor and his Wife find the Gaunt Old Woman when they approach her building?

3. How does the Writer go about writing without his sight?

4. What does the unnamed woman do with the lighter she finds among her baggage?

5. What does the Doctor's Wife say to silence the Thugs when they stop by the first ward at the beginning of Chapter 12?

6. What are the sleeping conditions in quarantine now that all of the beds are full?

7. What is the result of the other wards having given the Thugs all their valuables at once?

8. What plan does the Doctor's Wife and her band of companions develop after the asylum burns down?

9. Describe the scene in the Thug's Ward immediately after the Doctor's Wife kills their leader.

10. How does the Girl with Dark Glasses respond to the Man with the Eye-Patch's declaration of love?

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

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.

Essay Topic 2

Saramago makes several references to the old cliche: "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king." In the central section of the novel, he pits two characters with sensory advantages against each other: the Doctor's Wife, who can see, and the Chronicler, who was born blind and can read and type braille. Compare and contrast these two "one-eyed men" and how they use or do not use their advantages. Is either truly a leader or "king" in the quarantine? What does each hope to achieve for their constituency?

Essay Topic 3

If the novel Blindness is a parable, what is the lesson? Each of the surviving characters grows in a certain way from their experience in quarantine. What does the breakdown of their lives teach them? Cite examples for three of the surviving characters, noting how they behave at the beginning of the novel and at the end.

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