The Country of the Blind
29 pages • 58-minute read
H. G. WellsThe Country of the Blind
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Character Analysis
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of ableism and racism.
Nunez
Nunez is the protagonist of the story. He is introduced as a mountaineer from the countryside neighboring Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. Wells describes him as an “enterprising” character fond of books. He comes into the story when he accidentally falls off the side of Parascotopetl while guiding a group of Englishmen up the mountain.
Nunez’s character arc is defined by his attachment to power. He initially considers his sight the asset that makes him superior to the people in the valley. Spurred by the proverb, “In the Country of the Blind the One-eyed Man is King” (447), his first objective is to become their ruler. This motivation makes him an anti-hero, a protagonist with ambiguous moral values. His attempts are increasingly frustrated by the people’s failure to appreciate his arguments, especially since “sight” is a concept that does not exist in their imagination. The interplay between his actions and their consequences drives The Folly of Colonialism as a theme. The people mistakenly call him “Bogotá” throughout his time in the valley, which represents Nunez’s status as a foreign representative trying to encroach on their community. When Nunez resorts to violence, it results in his temporary isolation, and this decision precipitates his surrender, as well as the shift in his character motivations.
For the remainder of the story, Nunez deals with The Challenges of Assimilation as he struggles to fit into the community. It is during this time that he develops emotional relationships with others, chiefly Medina-saroté, his romantic interest. This relationship heightens the stakes of the choice the community offers him to surgically remove his eyes and complete his assimilation. If Nunez chooses to go forward with the surgery, he will effectively abandon the sense that he believed was the source of his power upon his arrival and a fundamental part of his identity. Nunez’s decision to leave the country of the blind altogether is predicated on his reliance on eyesight to perceive natural beauty. Wells does not frame sight as being a tragic flaw that hinders Nunez from assimilating. Rather, Nunez gives up his belief that any part of his identity makes him inherently better than anyone else. He leaves the community to acknowledge that sight and blindness are equally valid points on the spectrum of the human experience.
Medina-saroté
Medina-saroté is Nunez’s romantic interest. Their emotional connection drives Nunez to briefly consider giving up his eyesight in order to spend the rest of his life with her.
Medina-saroté is the youngest daughter of Yacob, a master, which implies that Medina-saroté has a high social status in the community. With her status, Wells reinforces the community’s immediate resistance to the union between Nunez and Medina-saroté. At one point, the young men of the country even form a mob to attack Nunez, fearing that he will “[corrupt] the race” (460). Nevertheless, the men of the community do not consider Medina-saroté beautiful by their standards since she has a “clear-cut” face, which clashes with their desire for women with smooth faces. Nunez thinks otherwise because he sees beauty in her eyelashes.
Medina-saroté is delighted by Nunez’s courtship because she finds his descriptions of eyesight poetic and fanciful. When the elders demand Nunez to surgically remove his eyes, she is conflicted. While she continues to love the way Nunez talks about his sight, she does not understand his experience enough to advocate for him. She tearfully expresses her wish for him to consent to the surgery and promises to repay him for his sacrifice. This drives the stakes of Nunez’s final decision in the story as he must choose between a life with Medina-saroté and a life with sight. Her role in the story is to heighten the stakes of Nunez’s decision whether to assimilate fully or not.
Yacob
Yacob is the kindly master of Nunez and the father of Medina-saroté. His relationship with Nunez is the second most important relationship Nunez has during his period of assimilation among the blind people. Yacob represents the authority of the collective, which passes judgment on Nunez’s actions. When Nunez begins to assimilate into the community and willingly performs manual labor as Yacob’s serf, Yacob approves of him.
This changes when he learns that Nunez wishes to marry his youngest daughter. From that point on, Yacob becomes a representative of the community’s attitude toward their relationship. He first appeals to Medina-saroté, claiming that Nunez suffers from delusions that prevent him from being a worthy husband to her. Then, when the elders present their theory that the surgical removal of Nunez’s eyes will cure him of those delusions, he strongly urges Nunez to follow through with their plan. He equates Nunez’s reluctance to undergo the surgery as a sign of his weak love for Medina-saroté. This concretizes the stakes of Nunez’s final choice in the story, which equates the abandonment of sight with his love for Medina-saroté.
The Lost Settler
The lost settler is a minor character introduced at the very beginning of the story. He helps to establish the mythology of the community, helping the reader to form an impression of it from a distanced perspective.
The lost settler first appears after a volcanic eruption reshapes the land, cutting off the only passage into the valley where the blind people live. The settler is forced to live among miners as he can never return to his family and home country. He explains that he had left the country to seek a cure for his people’s collective blindness. He describes his country as a verdant paradise full of greenery and livestock. Among his possessions is a bar of pure silver, whose value he does not realize because he believes it is just part of the collective wealth that his community had put together to finance a shrine in the valley. This is how the outer world becomes aware that the country even exists in the first place.
By introducing the community this way, rather than by opening the story from the perspective of a character living there, Wells creates an air of mystery around the story’s key setting. He effectively puts the reader in the position of the priest hearing the settler’s last confession before dying, making them imagine the country without seeing it firsthand. The settler’s stories also provide the foundation for Nunez’s understanding of the community, which is later juxtaposed with his actual experience there.
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