= The_Country_of_the

======================================================================
= The_Country_of_the_Blind =
======================================================================

Introduction
======================================================================
"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.

Plot summary
======================================================================
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, 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, and he rests, weak with cuts and bruises,
but happy that he has escaped the valley. His fate is not revealed. 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.

Characters
======================================================================
*Nuñez - a mountaineer from Bogotá, Colombia
*Yacob - Nuñez's master
*Medina-Saroté - the youngest daughter of Yacob

Adaptations
======================================================================
*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 changedNunez 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.
*A teleplay written by Frank Gabrielsen was produced in 1962 for the
TV series 'The DuPont Show of the Week'. The title of the hour-long
episode was "The Richest Man in Bogota", and it aired on 17 June 1962.
It starred Lee Marvin as Juan de Nuñez, and Míriam Colón as "Marina"
(not Medina-Saroté, as in the original story). In this story it is
revealed that something in the water of the valley has caused the
blindness of the residents. At the end of the episode Juan de Nuñez is
shown to now be blind as well.
*The Russian studio Soyuzmultfilm made a wordless 19-minute animated
film adaptation in 1995 called 'Land of Blind' (Страна Слепых).
*The theme of the protagonist getting lost in the world of the blind
was used in the 1997 Malayalam movie 'Guru' starring Mohanlal.
*The composer Mark-Anthony Turnage wrote a chamber opera based on the
story, completed in 1997.
*A stage production was written by Frank Higgins and Mark Evans; the
only production to date has been in The Coterie Theater in Kansas
City, Missouri in 2006.
*A Chinese version of a graded reader was adapted under the name 盲人国
(Mángrén Guó) as part of the Mandarin Companion series. The location
was adapted from Ecuador to China's province of Guizhou. A twist at
the ending indicates the blindness condition affecting the people is
contagious.
*An audio version of "The Country of Blind" was published in the
Indian language of Malayalam.

See also
======================================================================
* Tall poppy syndrome
* Plato's Allegory of the Cave

External links
======================================================================
*[https://books.google.com/books?id=J68vAAAAMAAJ&dq=%22The+Strand+Magazine%22+%22Country+of+the+blind.+by+H.G.+Wells%22&pg=PA401
'The Country of the Blind'] Original H. G. Wells short story in the
April 1904 issue of The Strand Magazine
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20091016034624/http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/w/wells/hg/w45cb/chapter32.html
'The Country of the Blind'] Short story by H. G. Wells
*[https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/11870 The Country of the Blind and
Other Stories] - Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg
*
Streaming Audio
*[https://archive.org/download/Escape19471948/esca.47.11.26_Country_of_the_Blind.mp3
'The Country of the Blind'] on Escape: 26 November 1947
*[http://www.escape-suspense.com/files/escape_1948.06.20_Country%20of%20the%20Blind.mp3
'The Country of the Blind'] on Escape: 20 June 1948
*[https://archive.org/download/FavoriteStory/FS_49-04-23_ep084-Strange_Valley-The_Country_of_the_Blind.mp3
'The Country of the Blind'] on Favorite Story: 23 April 1949
*[https://archive.org/download/SUSPENSE8/571027CountryOfTheBlind.MP3
'The Country of the Blind'] on Suspense: 27 October 1957

License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Country_of_the_Blind