Animal Imagery in Jose Saramago’s Blindness
Arya Aryan, Zohreh Helali

Abstract
As opposed to New Criticism and Russian Formalism’s contention regarding the meaning of a text as the result of literary devices as well as Structuralism and Poststructuralism to which it is merely the product of plays of signification, Reader-Response criticism stresses that meaning is constructed in the process of reading and is determined by the reader’s mind. Drawing upon Reader-Response theories, this study explores the gap created and linked between the strong animal imagery in Jose Saramago’s Blindness and the idea of spiritual blindness of human beings as symbolised in the physical blindness of the characters to assert that meaning is indeterminate and shaped by the reader’s realization of it. In addition, the researchers try to fill in the gaps created by the resemblance between the idea expressed in the novel and that found in previous literary works to discuss if the expectations raised in this light are fulfilled.

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