Riassunto della short story "The Country of the blind", Appunti di Inglese

Scarica Riassunto della short story "The Country of the blind" e più Appunti in PDF di Inglese solo su Docsity! The country of the blind-H.G.Wells In Ecuador there is a valley that is cut off from the world of men. it's the Country of the Blind. Thousands of years ago it was populated by a Peruvian population who had escaped from Spanish rulers. Soon there was a natural disaster : in a city it was night for 17 days, in another one the water started to boil and the fish died, everywhere along the Pacific there were landslides and a flood, and one side a mountain was cut off from the rest of the world. No one remained in the valley except for a man who got separated from his family and who had to start a new life. He soon became blind and the story that he told in the Spanish cities is now a legend. He told the reason why he decided to come back from that place where he had first been taken as child ,tied to a lama. The valley had everything that people could desire: water, beautiful vegetation, fruits and forests that prevented avalanches from hurting people. The weather was always pleasant. The only problem was that they were all blind. It was a genetic condition, and they wanted to look for an antidote to cure it. This is why the man had returned to the Country of the Blind. They thought that the reason of their condition was that they hadn't built a shrine for the gods. The man wanted a shrine and relics, so they all had put their money and ornaments together in order to share the cost. Everyone was blind:the elderly started to feel with their hands,being unable to see,the young saw indistinctly and the children that were born from them never saw at all. However, life was not difficult, in fact they had become blind gradually and they were not aware that they were losing their sight. They guided the young people in the valley until they knew the place by heart. Generations followed. They even managed to control fire. They were not able to read but they made art and followed old Peruvian traditions. This story is about a man who came to the Country of the Blind. He was a mountaineer who had traveled a lot and he had joined two Englishmen who had come to Ecuador to climb mountains. Together they tried to climb Parascotopetl. They traveled up until they arrived to a steep cliff, then they built a shelter for the night. Two men realized that he had disappeared. They called for him but there was no answer,so they spent the night awake.The next morning they realized that he had fallen down the slope of the mountain. Far below, there was the Country of the Blind, however they did not know about it. They returned to England ,and they never came back. However, the man who had fallen was alive: he realized that he had fallen from the steep cliff. When he woke up,he saw that the valley had grass,and flowers. It seemed like someone had watered them: it meant that there was civilisation. There were streams that fed the plants, and llamas. The houses in the village were arranged in a row on each side of a central route. They had many colors, and this made him think that they had been painted by a blind man. The people had clothes made of wool, leather boots and belts. They walked in a row, and they were yawning as if they had been up all night. He called them,but it seemed like they could not see him. After a while they shouted as if in reply. When finally Nunez approached them, he was sure they were blind, because the three men held out their ears to him. Plus, their eyelids were closed and and it looked like the eyeballs beneath them had disappeared. They looked surprised. One of them said that he's a man who came down from the rocks. Nunez though about the legend of the valley, particularly the proverb: "In the land of the blind the blind man is king.". He teold them that he came from the place where people could see. They started touching his face and they did not expect to find eyes, in fact they said that it was a “strange creature”. They also thought that his hair and beard were too rough. They seemed not to pay attention to what he said. They decided to take him into the village. When he said he was able to see, they believed that he was talking nonsense. He was taken in front of a crowd of children, men, women, who started touching him. They paid attention to what he said. Some of the young women didn't come close, because they were afraid of him, and they thought that his voice was rough.