The Country of the Blind Summary
The Country of the Blind is a short story of a British writer named H.G. Wells. It is one of his highly popular stories. Some main points of The Country of the Blind summary are:
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An accident on the mountain-side:
Nunez was a mountain guide. It happened that he went to guide a group of people from a camp over the mountains of South America in the winter, and he passed through an accident during the night. He fell from one of the highest mountains of the district and reached near a valley called the Country of the Blind and became unconscious. Luckily, his bones remained intact despite the accident. However, he felt some pain in his limbs when he returned to consciousness. Then, he tried to get up from where he was and went down. At last, he reached a place where there was no snow and fell asleep immediately while leaning against a large rock.
The entry of Nunez into the Country of the Blind:
Afterwards, he awoke due to the singing of birds and discovered that he was at the foot of a huge cliff. Then, Nunez found a way to reach down the cliff and entered into the Country of the Blind. When he reached the land, the sun was rising. He found himself tired after the long struggle to reach the floor, so he sat down under the shade of a rock for some rest. He saw a village which was only one or two miles away from him. The appearance of the whole valley looked strange to him. For example, he looked at some houses and observed that their walls were odd for being painted strangely; therefore, the word, blind, came into his mind. The reason of oddness is that the paints of those walls were mixtures of different hues like irregular grey, red, and dark brown colours.
The interaction of three blind people with Nunez:
Then, he climbed down the rock and reached the village. After some time, he saw three strange men in the valley who were carrying buckets. They wore dresses of Ilama cloth, and their boots and belts were made up of leather. Nunez moved forward and shouted for them. His voice echoed in the valley. When these men looked around upon his shout in place of looking at him, Nunez thought about the word, blind, again. Also, he said to himself, “The fools must be blind.” He, then, started walking towards them. The eyes of those men did not function for fourteen generations, but their ears were very sensitive. These people were blind because, in their village, a disease had emerged which made their ancestors blind several decades back. Their village was also a lost one because it had become separated from the outside world due to some fallen mountainside during an earthquake. So, they started feeling the presence of Nunez through his movements. They had different perceptions after meeting him. One man said that he might be a ghost from the rocks. They were touching Nunez to understand his existence. He told them that he came from the country where men could see. These blind men did not know the meaning of sight. So, they got some confused and decided to take Nunez in front of their elders.
The instructions given to Nunez by the oldest blind man:
When Nunez arrived in front of the elders, an older person began to question him. Then, Nunez tried to explain many things to the elders like the mountains, sky, and sight, but those blind people could not understand his words and concepts. When he realized that they could not comprehend his explanations about the outside world and sight, then he sat to listen to their instructions. The oldest blind man explained life and religion to him. They also told him about the time divisions. For them, the time was divided into two sections, the warm and the cold. As they were blind, they didn’t know the difference between the day and night. They worked during the night when there was coldness in the atmosphere, and they slept during the day when there was warmness in the environment. Then, they gave Nunez Ilama’s milk in a bowl and some rough and salty bread as food. They also led him away from the village to a lonely place where he could eat and sleep. However, Nunez did not sleep at all, and he started to consider himself as the king of the village. He was still thinking when the sunset.
The rebellion and repentance of Nunez:
Then, someone called Nunez from the village. Nunez tried to show him the power of sight by walking on the grass quietly, but he became amazed when the blind man heard the voice of his walk on the grass. The blind man stopped him from walking there because they did not allow walking on the grass. Many days passed, but Nunez remained a clumsy and useless stranger among those people. When he lost hopes to persuade them to believe in the existence of sight, he thought to use force. He picked up a spade in anger to hit a blind man when the blind people made fun of him, but he discovered soon that it was impossible for him to hit the blind person because of his/her extremely sensitive ears. Then, Nunez ran away from the place because he was feeling terrified as the blind citizens were aware of his misbehaviour. He stayed outside the village of the blind people for two days and nights without food and shelter. Finally, he changed his decision of rebellion and shouted for help. Then, blind people came to rescue him and after observing his acceptable behaviour, they forgave him. They thought that Nunez misbehaved as a result of his stupidity and unimportance in the village. Afterwards, he behaved according to the blind people’s instructions.
The love affair of Nunez and Medina:
In this way, Nunez became a citizen of the Country of the Blind. He had an aged master called Yacob who remained kind-hearted before getting annoyed. The old Yacob had the youngest daughter named Medina who was very beautiful. She used to listen to talks of Nunez about the sight and outer world with interest. She considered such conversations as products of his imagination. Both Medina and Nunez were in love with each other. They wanted to marry each other. One day, when everyone knew about their affair, they were against their marriage. Even, Yacob did not want his daughter to get married to Nunez because he thought that Nunez was a fool. However, Yacob agreed for this marriage on seeing his daughter sad because of his disagreement. The matter was presented in the council of elders, and one of the intelligent men presented an idea to cure Nunez so that he could behave normally according to the blind people.
The freedom of Nunez:
The wise man of the council, who was a doctor among the blind people, suggested Yacob that Nunez could be normal if they could remove his eyes. At first, Nunez disagreed, but after listening to Medina’s words that she loved him but considered his concept of sight as a part of his imagination, he agreed to lose his eyes for Medina. However, he was unsure about his decision. Nunez could not sleep for one week before the operation which aimed at changing his position from a low to a high level in the Country of the Blind. On the last morning, he went to a lonely place before the time of that operation to stay around the scene of greenery, but, then, he went on moving far away from the village. He thought to go into his own world where people could see. He kept on traveling the whole day in the hope of reaching his destination. In the evening, he laid on the snow with the desire for freedom. Although it was getting darker and colder, he was just smiling and staring the beautiful blue sky and did not move at all.
Author's introduction:
H.G. Wells was born in 1866, and he died in 1946. He was a British author, and he was best known for his science fiction like The Time Machine and The War of the Worlds. He also wrote many famous short stories, but the most popular short-story is The Country of the Blind. The Country of the Blind was written in 1911.
Conclusion:
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