Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
The Country of the Blind
"The Country of the Blind" is a short story by English writer 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, with the expanded version first published by an English private printer, Golden Cockerel Press, in 1939.
While attempting to climb the unconquered crest of Parascotopetl (a fictitious mountain in Ecuador), a mountaineer named Nuñez 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. Unknown to Nuñez, 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, cutting the valley off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years, despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all newborns blind. As the blindness slowly spread over many generations, the people's remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight.
Nuñez 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, Nuñez begins reciting to himself the proverb, "In the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King". He realizes that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have no concept of sight (or of life outside of their valley), and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nuñez becomes angry, but the villagers calm him, and he reluctantly submits to their way of life, because returning to the outside world seems impossible.
Nuñez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob. He becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-Saroté. Nuñez and Medina-Saroté soon fall in love, and having won her confidence, Nuñez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-Saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nuñez 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 Nuñez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are "greatly distended" and because of this "his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction." Nuñez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-Saroté. However, at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nuñez, 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, Nuñez climbs high into the surrounding mountains until night falls. Upon sunset "...he was not longer climbing, but he was far and high. His clothes were torn, his limbs were bloodstained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as if he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face. [...] he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite still there, smiling as if he were content now merely to have escaped from the valley of the Blind, in which he had thought to be King. And the glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay there, under the cold, clear stars."
In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story, Nuñez 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 flees the valley during the slide, taking Medina-Saroté with him.
Several radio adaptations of the story have been produced. Escape debuted its adaptation starring William Conrad on Thanksgiving week, 1947, which featured a different ending in which Nuñez escapes the Valley alone (and thus is able to tell the story in-character), but goes blind in the process due to the constant glare from the snow. Another episode of Escape aired 20 June 1948, starring Paul Frees. In 1954, 1957 and 1959 the CBS radio series Suspense rebroadcast this version. CBS Radio Mystery Theater aired another radio adaptation 7 May 1979. The episode was titled "Search for Eden" (episode 977) and the main characters' names were changed – Nunez was renamed Carlos and Medina-Saroté was renamed Eva. The BBC folded the story in two others by Wells for a BBC Radio 4 Extra entitled "The Door in the Wall", also with a twist at the end in which the storyteller reveals himself to be the tale's protagonist.
Hub AI
The Country of the Blind AI simulator
(@The Country of the Blind_simulator)
The Country of the Blind
"The Country of the Blind" is a short story by English writer 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, with the expanded version first published by an English private printer, Golden Cockerel Press, in 1939.
While attempting to climb the unconquered crest of Parascotopetl (a fictitious mountain in Ecuador), a mountaineer named Nuñez 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. Unknown to Nuñez, 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, cutting the valley off forever from future explorers. The isolated community prospered over the years, despite a disease that struck them early on, rendering all newborns blind. As the blindness slowly spread over many generations, the people's remaining senses sharpened, and by the time the last sighted villager had died, the community had fully adapted to life without sight.
Nuñez 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, Nuñez begins reciting to himself the proverb, "In the Country of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is King". He realizes that he can teach and rule them, but the villagers have no concept of sight (or of life outside of their valley), and do not understand his attempts to explain this fifth sense to them. Frustrated, Nuñez becomes angry, but the villagers calm him, and he reluctantly submits to their way of life, because returning to the outside world seems impossible.
Nuñez is assigned to work for a villager named Yacob. He becomes attracted to Yacob's youngest daughter, Medina-Saroté. Nuñez and Medina-Saroté soon fall in love, and having won her confidence, Nuñez slowly starts trying to explain sight to her. Medina-Saroté, however, simply dismisses it as his imagination. When Nuñez 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 Nuñez's eyes be removed, claiming that they are diseased and are "greatly distended" and because of this "his brain is in a state of constant irritation and distraction." Nuñez reluctantly consents to the operation because of his love for Medina-Saroté. However, at sunrise on the day of the operation, while all the villagers are asleep, Nuñez, 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, Nuñez climbs high into the surrounding mountains until night falls. Upon sunset "...he was not longer climbing, but he was far and high. His clothes were torn, his limbs were bloodstained, he was bruised in many places, but he lay as if he were at his ease, and there was a smile on his face. [...] he heeded these things no longer, but lay quite still there, smiling as if he were content now merely to have escaped from the valley of the Blind, in which he had thought to be King. And the glow of the sunset passed, and the night came, and still he lay there, under the cold, clear stars."
In the revised and expanded 1939 version of the story, Nuñez 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 flees the valley during the slide, taking Medina-Saroté with him.
Several radio adaptations of the story have been produced. Escape debuted its adaptation starring William Conrad on Thanksgiving week, 1947, which featured a different ending in which Nuñez escapes the Valley alone (and thus is able to tell the story in-character), but goes blind in the process due to the constant glare from the snow. Another episode of Escape aired 20 June 1948, starring Paul Frees. In 1954, 1957 and 1959 the CBS radio series Suspense rebroadcast this version. CBS Radio Mystery Theater aired another radio adaptation 7 May 1979. The episode was titled "Search for Eden" (episode 977) and the main characters' names were changed – Nunez was renamed Carlos and Medina-Saroté was renamed Eva. The BBC folded the story in two others by Wells for a BBC Radio 4 Extra entitled "The Door in the Wall", also with a twist at the end in which the storyteller reveals himself to be the tale's protagonist.