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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. Who in the first ward defends the anonymous person who killed the Leader of the Thugs?

2. Approximately how many Thugs have taken control of the fifth ward?

3. What does each member of the sieging group carry with her?

4. What vegetable does the Gaunt Old Woman eat along with her raw rabbit?

5. Which of the following social niceties has not disappeared from society in this chapter?

Short Essay Questions

1. What arrangement do the Thugs make for payment?

2. Why would the Doctor's Wife's mentioning to the stranger she meets that she is going home reveal that she can see?

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

4. Describe the old woman with insomnia in Chapter 9.

5. Describe the Gaunt Old Woman that lives below the Girl with Dark Glasses' parents' apartment.

6. What happens to the Old Woman with insomnia in Chapter 11?

7. How do the Thugs keep track of their earnings?

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

9. What is the general attitude in the other wards when food stops arriving at the main entrance?

10. Describe the Thugs' ward.

Essay Topics

Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:

Essay Topic 1

Discuss the devolution of post-industrial society in the novel by choosing one of the following questions to answer in essay form:

1.) The Doctor's Wife is a witness to degradation and dehumanization in the quarantine. What are some examples of the subhuman conditions in the asylum, and what is Saramago saying about the trajectory human nature takes when standards of living are reduced to subsistence levels?

2.) Discuss the relationship of the Thugs to the rest of the quarantine after the Thugs take control of the food supply. How does this feudal relationship involve inmates relying wholeheartedly on those who subjugate them?

3.) The Man with the Eye-Patch that the state of the city after the blindness has swept the country is similar to the origins of man. How does this city resemble pre-agrarian times, citing examples of modern social standards that have vanished?

Essay Topic 2

Create a character arc for the Doctor. As a figure of esteem in the realm of vision before the epidemic, how does he become a figure of scorn after. Citing examples form his time in quarantine, map out his descent from control to helplessness. In what ways does he occasionally reassert his control over life?

Essay Topic 3

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.

(see the answer keys)

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