A comparative analysis between the “Essay on blindness” by Saramago and the “Allegory of the cave” by Plato

Abstract

From the theoretical perspective of Comparative Literature, the study comparatively analyzes the constituent elements “Essay on blindness” by Saramago (1995) and the “Allegory of the cave” (1956) by Plato. The methodological procedures adopted consisted of a review of the literature on the subject, extraction of fragments that indicate the direct presence of a dialogism between the mentioned works and, finally, a comparative analysis between the texts. Concepts such as intertextuality and dialogism from Bakhtin's dialogical theory (1988, 2006) reverberated by Fiorin (2017) have proved fruitful in this investigation. As a bibliographical study, the following authors were consulted: Carvalhal (2006), Brait (2005; 2009), Brunel, Pichois and Rousseau (2012), Massaud Moisés (2014) and Barros and Fiorin (2011), among others. The results indicate that the relationship between the texts reveals a permanent dialogue between the central theme addressed by the Portuguese writer and the philosopher's discourse of the Greek thinker: the metaphor of blindness. This “blindness” becomes one of the intertextual elements that serves as a motto for an examination of the societies portrayed in the works.