If you can look, observe. Indeed, one way or another, we're all in the dark. The characters in Blindness can't, literally or figuratively. Waiting for the red light to change, a man in a car is suddenly struck sightless, a milky haze clouding his vision. When the first blind man consults an ophthalmologist, the good doctor is stricken while poring over his medical texts.
Characters go unnamed, as does the setting.
The contagion is universal. To combat what authorities don't yet want to call an epidemic, the blind are quarantined in a mental hospital, one of many symbols that help Blindness seem so visionary. Adjacent quarters are established for those exposed to the blind but whose condition hasn't yet revealed itself. All are guarded by armed soldiers, ready to shoot to kill. Ominous rules and food shortages prevail.