29 pages • 58-minute read
The Country of the Blind
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Symbols & Motifs
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of ableism and racism.
Sight
Sight is one of the story’s most dominant motifs, representing a colonizer’s perceived superiority and connecting to the theme of The Folly of Colonialism. Nunez believes that his sight is a sign of his power over a community of people who are blind. This motivates him to attempt to become their ruler and reshape their society according to his needs. Nunez’s failure to subdue the people exposes the illusory nature of his power, raising the idea that his sight only offers advantages in a society designed for people with sight. Through this metaphor, Wells illustrates how a characteristic that a colonizer sees as making them superior can in fact hold no value in a different society.
When Nunez submits himself to the power of the collective, he begins to recognize that his sight is not a sign of his superiority but an obstruction to his assimilation, developing the theme of The Challenges of Assimilation. Wells highlights the sacrifices necessary for assimilation as the community suggests a procedure to surgically remove Nunez’s eyes as a condition for his full acceptance into their society. He is left to reckon with the possibility of living as a blind man who has previously experienced sight, which would ironically increase his isolation. By choosing between his sight and life in the community, including love and marriage, Nunez is forced to disentangle his notions of power from his sight. In the end, Nunez chooses to leave the community and retain his sight, making the choice to not sacrifice that element of his identity. The closing passage finds him cherishing sight as a gift that allows him to enjoy the beauty of the natural world as he has known it all his life.
The Community
The community in which the people who are blind live is a motif throughout the story that contributes to the theme of The Value of Needs-Based Development. While its design strikes Nunez as strange, it reflects their specific needs, allowing them to operate as a functional society cut off from the outer world.
The town has been developed to prioritize the ways in which its residents live and work, and it is so seamlessly designed that Nunez finds it impossible to argue for changes. Its specific suitability for the community actively disadvantages Nunez’s ability to assert his perceived power over it. None of the buildings have windows as they are not needed; consequently, the interiors are completely dark, causing Nunez to stumble whenever he is indoors since he does not know how to navigate the interiors using his other senses. The town’s pathways are also designed to be navigable by hearing and touch, enabling people to sense whether Nunez has stepped away from the path. The town’s design makes Nunez look clumsy, leading the blind people to think that he is still “newly formed.” This influences their later impression of him, which puts him in a lower class of their social hierarchy. By tracing Nunez’s experience as a person with sight navigating a community designed for people who are blind, Wells highlights the importance of designing a community to suit the needs of its residents rather than imposing an unsuitable design on them.
Stars
The stars are the closing image of the story. They function as a symbol of the world’s visual beauty, which Nunez chooses to live with instead of abandoning his sight for the sake of assimilation.
Wells leaves Nunez’s fate ambiguous—the story never reveals whether Nunez survives his ascent of the mountain or chooses to return to the community. Instead, Wells describes Nunez as being “peacefully contented” as he lies under the night sky. This suggests a fulfillment of Nunez’s character arc, which initially considered sight as proof of his power over people who are blind. By the end of the story, Nunez has abandoned this notion. He instead considers sight the sense that grants him access to the visual beauty of the natural world. The end of the story is meant to affirm this choice, especially since the stars appear against the darkness of the night sky. They allow him to delight in their beauty, as well as in his ability to perceive them.
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