View source for The Country of the Blind

{{about||the Christopher Brookmyre novel|Country of the Blind|the Skeleton Crew album|The Country of Blinds}}

{{Infobox short story | <!-- See [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Novels]] or [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Books]] -->
| image            = [[File:Wells CountryOfTheBlindStories(1st edition).jpg|200px]]
| caption          = First edition cover of ''[[The Country of the Blind and Other Stories]]'' (1911)
| title_orig       = 
| translator       = 
| author           = [[H. G. Wells]]
| country          = {{flag|United Kingdom}}
| language         = English
| series           = 
| genre            = [[Short story]]
| published_in     = ''[[Strand Magazine]]''
| publisher        = 
| media_type       = Print ([[Magazine]])
| pub_date         = April [[1904 in literature|1904]]
| english_pub_date = 
| preceded_by      = 
| followed_by      = 
}}

'''"The Country of the Blind"''' is a [[short story]] written by [[H. G. Wells]]. It was first published in the April [[1904 in literature|1904]] issue of the ''[[Strand Magazine]]'' and included in a [[1911 in literature|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 [[blindness in literature|literature dealing with blindness]].

Wells later revised the story and the expanded version was first published by an English [[private press|private printer]], [[Golden Cockerel Press]] in 1939.

==Plot summary==
While attempting to summit Parascotopetl's unconquered crest, a fictitious mountain in [[Ecuador]], 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 [[Spain|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 [[Blindness|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 [[Landslide|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.

==Characters==
*Nunez – a mountaineer from [[Bogotá]], [[Colombia]]
*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":<ref>{{cite web |url=http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_cult/culturedisability.html |title=Culture as Disability |work=Serendip (Science in Culture) |last=McDermott, Ray and Varenne, Hervé |accessdate=2007-06-01}}</ref>
*An isolated community will generally overcome any [[disability]] like [[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 [[xenophobia|xenophobic]], and will persecute and (if necessary) maim anyone who is different and/or non-conformist.
*The [[Saying|maxim]], "[[Adagia|In the Country of the Blind the One-Eyed Man is King]]", from [[Desiderius Erasmus]], 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. ''[[Escape (radio program)|Escape]]'' aired one adaptation [[Thanksgiving]] week, 1947. In 1954, 1957 and 1959 adaptations were produced for the [[NBC]] radio series ''[[Suspense (radio program)|Suspense]]''.
*A stage production was written by Frank Higgins; the only production to date has been in The Coterie Theatre in [[Kansas City, Missouri]] 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 Marvin]] as Nunez.
*The composer [[Mark-Anthony Turnage]] wrote a chamber opera based on the story, completed in 1997.

==Footnotes==
{{reflist}}

==External links==
{{wikisource}}
*[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/11870 The Country of the Blind and Other Stories] - [[public domain|public-domain]] text from [[Project Gutenberg]]
*[http://www.horrormasters.com/Text/a0159.pdf The Country of the Blind] - [[Portable Document Format|PDF]] version
*[http://www.otr.net/r/susp/79.ram NBC radio adaptation of "Country of the Blind"] - [[RealAudio]] file

{{H. G. Wells}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Country of the Blind, The}}
[[Category:Short stories by H. G. Wells]]
[[Category:1904 short stories]]
[[Category:Blindness]]

[[cs:Země slepců]]
[[de:Das Land der Blinden]]
[[it:Il paese dei ciechi]]
[[Category:2Fix]]