The King of Ward Three
This character is introduced mid way through the book, but is still important to the understanding as a whole. As a semi-background character he plays a role to highlight the ethics and morals of the doctor's wife. He is known as the "King of Ward Three" because in the mental hospital he somehow gets a hold of a gun and bullets, and therefore takes control over the people. He attracts a gang of men to be his thugs and take over the food rations. Soon after taking the food from the blind, he makes demands of the people in exchange for food. When the jewelry is exhausted and there is nothing the people have left in exchange for food, he demands women to rape from each ward. The doctor's wife doesn't put up with the humiliation and degradation for more than one night, and she kills him by slitting his throat with a pair of scissors during the next rape session. He becomes an important character to see what people evolve into when they need to survive. In real life without blindness the king of ward three wouldn't probably have been a gun wielding psychopathic tyrant, and the doctor's wife who is kind and gentle and caring wouldn't have sliced a man to death through the jugular.
The Girl with Dark Glasses
This girl goes blind while having casual sex with a man in a hotel. From this introduction to her she seems cold and not valuing of love. However, when in the mental hospital with the rest of the blind, she becomes the caregiver for the orphaned boy. She always gives him some of her food and comforts his cries for his mother who he never finds. The girl with the dark glasses evolves as a human in the mental asylum, she becomes a caring and thoughtful person who cares for more than appearances. She is described as beautiful and young, but because her ascetics become less important when the world is blind she is forced to grow. She develops a relationship with the man with an eye patch because she values and loves who he is as a man. The greatest change this character sees is when she makes a genuine compliment to the doctor's wife on her beauty, "You are beautiful, said the girl with the dark glasses, How do you know, since you have never seen me, I have dreamt of you twice," The girl goes on to explain how her mind invented her beauty to her, this understanding brings the girl to new understandings of beauty, and how it isn't purely appearances that make people wonderful and beautiful.
"Inside us there is something with no name, that something is what we are."
The Man with an Eye Patch
The man with the eye patch comes joins the main group of blind people in the mental hospital after some time has passed. He brings with him knowledge of the outside world and the chaos that has erupted from the blindness epidemic. The man with the eye patch enters the ward in a way that no one else has, he waits for hours for the crowd to die down and patiently asks if there is room available for him. He seems to already have a clear understanding of what is going to work for him, and in this way isn't as blind as the rest of the people.
The Doctor's Wife
The doctor's wife is who I would consider to be the main character. She is the only person not to go blind during this epidemic, but certainly in the spirit of Saramago's themes isn't completely able to see for the whole book. From the beginning of her journey she was loving and caring toward her husband, and the people around her. She tried to nurse the car thief with his injury, and was diplomatic in giving food rations. Despite being caring and involved, she wasn't always the main character in my eyes. The doctor took a leadership role in the hospital and was seemingly who I thought I'd follow. However, it is the doctor's wife who really leads the people behind the scenes. When the kind of ward three demands sex for food the doctor's wife kills him in an attempt to take down the gang that controls the hospital. She sacrifices her morals and ethics for the better of the rest of the people. When the people leave the hospital and the world outside is even worse she leads her charges through the city and searches for food. She can only care for so many people and he husband advises that she keep her eyesight a secret so that she can doesn't become slave to the blind. The book ends with a moment where she believes she will go blind as she looks up into the sky, but the city remains below her eyes. She is a changed person from the blindness of others. When the other people couldn't see the terrors of what has happened, she could. When the blind couldn't see the suffering of other people, she could. When it came to life or death she had to kill, and she had to leave people behind. In the beginning I believe she would have remained passive had it not been for the necessity to live. After having to witness the sight and smell of rotting people after she left a food storage basement open she is most traumatized. She survives the trauma of the epidemic in a completely different way, she will never see life the same.
"When is it necessary to kill? When something that is alive is already dead."
A nice discussion of the significance of the characters, as well as how they relate to some thematic ideas of the novel.
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