The Country of the Blind
Encyclopedia
"The Country of the Blind" is a short story
written by H. G. Wells
. It was first published in the April 1904
issue of the Strand Magazine
and included in a 1911
collection of Wells's short stories, The Country of the Blind and Other Stories
. It is one of Wells's best known short stories and features prominently in literature dealing with blindness
.
Wells later revised the story and the expanded version was first published by an English private printer
, Golden Cockerel Press
in 1939.
, a mountaineer named Nunez slips and falls down the far side of the mountain. At the end of his descent, down a snow-slope in the mountain's shadow, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by steep precipices. Unbeknown to Nunez, he has discovered the fabled Country of the Blind. The valley had been a haven for settlers fleeing the tyranny of Spanish rulers until an earthquake
reshaped the surrounding mountains and cut it off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all new-borns blind
. As the blindness slowly spread over the generations, their remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight.
Nunez descends into the valley and finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all bordered by kerbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, Nunez begins reciting to himself the refrain, "In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King". He realises that he can teach and rule them. But the villagers have no concept of sight and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nunez becomes angry but they calm him and he reluctantly submits to their way of life because returning to the outside world is impossible.
Nunez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob, and becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-saroté. Nunez and Medina-saroté soon fall in love with one another, and having won her confidence, Nunez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nunez asks for her hand in marriage he is turned down by the village elders on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor suggests that Nunez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain. Nunez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-saroté. But at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nunez, the failed King of the Blind, sets off for the mountains (without provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world and escape the valley.
In the original story, he escapes the valley but becomes trapped in the mountains, which ultimately leads to his death. In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story Nunez sees from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide
. He attempts to warn the villagers, but again they scoff at his "imagined" sight. He takes Medina-saroté and flees the valley during the slide.
Short story
A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...
written by H. G. Wells
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells was an English author, now best known for his work in the science fiction genre. He was also a prolific writer in many other genres, including contemporary novels, history, politics and social commentary, even writing text books and rules for war games...
. It was first published in the April 1904
1904 in literature
The year 1904 in literature involved some significant new books.-Events:* January - Mark Twain begins dictating his autobiography.* 16 June - "Bloomsday": the day on which the action of James Joyce's novel Ulysses takes place in Dublin....
issue of the Strand Magazine
Strand Magazine
The Strand Magazine was a monthly magazine composed of fictional stories and factual articles founded by George Newnes. It was first published in the United Kingdom from January 1891 to March 1950 running to 711 issues, though the first issue was on sale well before Christmas 1890.Its immediate...
and included in a 1911
1911 in literature
The year 1911 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*George Moore publishes the first of his three-volume Hail and Farewell .*Gallimard publishing house founded in Paris by Gaston Gallimard...
collection of Wells's short stories, The Country of the Blind and Other Stories
The Country of the Blind and Other Stories
The Country of the Blind and Other Stories is a collection of thirty-three fantasy and science fiction short stories written by the English author H. G. Wells between 1894 and 1909. It was first published by Thomas Nelson and Sons in 1911. All the stories had first been published in various weekly...
. It is one of Wells's best known short stories and features prominently in literature dealing with blindness
Blindness in literature
Different cultures through history have depicted blindness in a variety of ways; among the Greeks, for example, it was a punishment from the gods, for which the afflicted individual was often granted compensation in the form of artistic genius...
.
Wells later revised the story and the expanded version was first published by an English private printer
Private press
Private press is a term used in the field of book collecting to describe a printing press operated as an artistic or craft-based endeavor, rather than as a purely commercial venture...
, Golden Cockerel Press
Golden Cockerel Press
Golden Cockerel Press was a major English private press operating between 1920 and 1961.The Press was founded by Harold Midgley Taylor in 1920 and was first in Waltham St Lawrence in Berkshire where he had unsuccessfully tried fruit farming...
in 1939.
Plot summary
While attempting to summit the unconquered crest of Parascotopetl, a fictitious mountain in EcuadorEcuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...
, a mountaineer named Nunez slips and falls down the far side of the mountain. At the end of his descent, down a snow-slope in the mountain's shadow, he finds a valley, cut off from the rest of the world on all sides by steep precipices. Unbeknown to Nunez, he has discovered the fabled Country of the Blind. The valley had been a haven for settlers fleeing the tyranny of Spanish rulers until an earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
reshaped the surrounding mountains and cut it off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all new-borns blind
Blindness
Blindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
. As the blindness slowly spread over the generations, their remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight.
Nunez descends into the valley and finds an unusual village with windowless houses and a network of paths, all bordered by kerbs. Upon discovering that everyone is blind, Nunez begins reciting to himself the refrain, "In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King". He realises that he can teach and rule them. But the villagers have no concept of sight and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nunez becomes angry but they calm him and he reluctantly submits to their way of life because returning to the outside world is impossible.
Nunez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob, and becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-saroté. Nunez and Medina-saroté soon fall in love with one another, and having won her confidence, Nunez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nunez asks for her hand in marriage he is turned down by the village elders on account of his "unstable" obsession with "sight". The village doctor suggests that Nunez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are affecting his brain. Nunez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-saroté. But at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nunez, the failed King of the Blind, sets off for the mountains (without provisions or equipment), hoping to find a passage to the outside world and escape the valley.
In the original story, he escapes the valley but becomes trapped in the mountains, which ultimately leads to his death. In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story Nunez sees from a distance that there is about to be a rock slide
Landslide
A landslide or landslip is a geological phenomenon which includes a wide range of ground movement, such as rockfalls, deep failure of slopes and shallow debris flows, which can occur in offshore, coastal and onshore environments...
. He attempts to warn the villagers, but again they scoff at his "imagined" sight. He takes Medina-saroté and flees the valley during the slide.
Characters
- Nunez – a mountaineer from BogotáBogotáBogotá, Distrito Capital , from 1991 to 2000 called Santa Fé de Bogotá, is the capital, and largest city, of Colombia. It is also designated by the national constitution as the capital of the department of Cundinamarca, even though the city of Bogotá now comprises an independent Capital district...
, ColombiaColombiaColombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the... - Yacob – Nunez's master
- Medina-saroté – the youngest daughter of Yacob
Major themes
H. G. Wells addresses the following themes in "The Country of the Blind":- An isolated community will generally overcome any disabilityDisabilityA disability may be physical, cognitive, mental, sensory, emotional, developmental or some combination of these.Many people would rather be referred to as a person with a disability instead of handicapped...
like blindnessBlindnessBlindness is the condition of lacking visual perception due to physiological or neurological factors.Various scales have been developed to describe the extent of vision loss and define blindness...
after a few generations. - Having adapted to cope with such disabilities, an isolated community will believe that its modified behaviour is normal.
- An isolated community will tend to be closed-minded and xenophobicXenophobiaXenophobia is defined as "an unreasonable fear of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange". It comes from the Greek words ξένος , meaning "stranger," "foreigner" and φόβος , meaning "fear."...
, and will persecute and (if necessary) maim anyone who is different and/or non-conformist. - The maximSayingA saying is something that is said, notable in one respect or another, to be "a pithy expression of wisdom or truth."There are a number of specific types of saying:...
, "In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is KingAdagiaAdagia is an annotated collection of Greek and Latin proverbs, compiled during the Renaissance by Dutch humanist Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus. Erasmus' collection of proverbs is "one of the most monumental ... ever assembled" Adagia (adagium is the singular form and adagia is the plural) is an...
", from Desiderius ErasmusDesiderius ErasmusDesiderius Erasmus Roterodamus , known as Erasmus of Rotterdam, was a Dutch Renaissance humanist, Catholic priest, and a theologian....
, is not necessarily always true. - The story may be seen as an allegory of society's treatment of those with ability or intellect beyond the understanding of the many. The fear of the 'barbarian' or at least unenlightened masses is a recurrent theme in Wells's writing.
Adaptations
- Several radio adaptations of the story have been produced. EscapeEscape (radio program)Escape was radio's leading anthology series of high-adventure radio dramas, airing on CBS from July 7, 1947 to September 25, 1954. Since the program did not have a regular sponsor like Suspense, it was subjected to frequent schedule shifts and lower production budgets, although Richfield Oil signed...
aired one adaptation ThanksgivingThanksgivingThanksgiving Day is a holiday celebrated primarily in the United States and Canada. Thanksgiving is celebrated each year on the second Monday of October in Canada and on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. In Canada, Thanksgiving falls on the same day as Columbus Day in the...
week, 1947. In 1954, 1957 and 1959 adaptations were produced for the CBSCBSCBS Broadcasting Inc. is a major US commercial broadcasting television network, which started as a radio network. The name is derived from the initials of the network's former name, Columbia Broadcasting System. The network is sometimes referred to as the "Eye Network" in reference to the shape of...
radio series SuspenseSuspense (radio program)-Production background:One of the premier drama programs of the Golden Age of Radio, was subtitled "radio's outstanding theater of thrills" and focused on suspense thriller-type scripts, usually featuring leading Hollywood actors of the era...
. - A stage production was written by Frank Higgins; the only production to date has been in The Coterie Theatre in Kansas City, MissouriKansas City, MissouriKansas City, Missouri is the largest city in the U.S. state of Missouri and is the anchor city of the Kansas City Metropolitan Area, the second largest metropolitan area in Missouri. It encompasses in parts of Jackson, Clay, Cass, and Platte counties...
in 2006. - A teleplay written by Frank Gabrielsen was produced in 1962 for the TV series The DuPont Show of the Week. It starred Lee MarvinLee MarvinLee Marvin was an American film actor. Known for his gravelly voice, white hair and 6' 2" stature, Marvin at first did supporting roles, mostly villains, soldiers and other hardboiled characters, but after winning an Academy Award for Best Actor for his dual roles in Cat Ballou , he landed more...
as Nunez. - The Russian studio SoyuzmultfilmSoyuzmultfilmSoyuzmultfilm is a Russian animation studio based in Moscow. Over the years it has gained international attention and respect, garnering numerous awards both at home and abroad. Noted for a great variety of style, it is regarded as the most influential animation studio of the former Soviet Union...
made a wordless 19-minute animated film adaptation in 1995. - The composer Mark-Anthony TurnageMark-Anthony TurnageMark-Anthony Turnage is a prolific English composer of classical music. His initial musical studies were with Oliver Knussen, John Lambert, and later with Gunther Schuller...
wrote a chamber opera based on the story, completed in 1997.
External links
- The Country of the Blind and Other Stories – public-domainPublic domainWorks are in the public domain if the intellectual property rights have expired, if the intellectual property rights are forfeited, or if they are not covered by intellectual property rights at all...
text from Project GutenbergProject GutenbergProject Gutenberg is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks". Founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart, it is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books... - The Country of the Blind – PDFPortable Document FormatPortable Document Format is an open standard for document exchange. This file format, created by Adobe Systems in 1993, is used for representing documents in a manner independent of application software, hardware, and operating systems....
version - NBC radio adaptation of "Country of the Blind" – RealAudioRealAudioRealAudio is a proprietary audio format developed by RealNetworks and first released in April 1995. It uses a variety of audio codecs, ranging from low-bitrate formats that can be used over dialup modems, to high-fidelity formats for music. It can also be used as a streaming audio format, that is...
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