Plot
A woman bursts into a hospital emergency room and demands to see a doctor. Claire Hendricks, a nurse, tries to help her, but the woman is rude and insistent on only seeing the doctor. Before long, the doctor arrives, but too late...the woman is now blind with cataracts. In another instance, an elderly man is desperately trying to get Claire to help his wife. Claire claims that hospital policy is forcing her not to help, but it's clear she is an uncaring person, nevertheless. The blind woman, Mrs. Reed, wants Claire to come visit her, but Claire is apprehensive and negative. Mrs. Reed admits that she's beginning to realize what's happening and that she "sees" a lot of herself in Claire. She apparently wanted to warn her of something, but Claire dismisses her and leaves.
Mr. Reed shows up at the hospital, blind as well. It turns out Mrs. Reed, in her own selfishness, knew she was going blind and abandoned him to get help for herself. Suddenly, more and more people show up, all blind from spontaneous cataract development. An epidemic ensues from coast to coast. Claire, despite her incredible workload now, visits with Mrs. Reed again. Mrs. Reed talks about how much alike they are. She also claims the blindness is happening because we have become monkeys... see no evil, speak no evil, etc. We have become such an uncaring society, and since we now turn a blind eye to suffering, nature has turned a blind eye to us. Soon, a report surfaces that an explosion at a bioweapons facility may be responsible for the blindness, but Claire starts to realize that Mrs. Reed might be right. Claire soon succumbs to blindness.
News comes of a surgery that will cure all the blinded. Mrs. Reed visits with Claire and they discuss the surgery. Mrs. Reed and others will get their sight back. When she asks Claire when her surgery will be, Claire says she will not have it. She believes in what Mrs. Reed said and thinks that no surgery will help her. The doctor says Claire will see again, but it will take her a little longer. Claire's eyes are clear.
Read more about this topic: Many, Many Monkeys
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
“After I discovered the real life of mothers bore little resemblance to the plot outlined in most of the books and articles I’d read, I started relying on the expert advice of other mothers—especially those with sons a few years older than mine. This great body of knowledge is essentially an oral history, because anyone engaged in motherhood on a daily basis has no time to write an advice book about it.”
—Mary Kay Blakely (20th century)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)
“The plot! The plot! What kind of plot could a poet possibly provide that is not surpassed by the thinking, feeling reader? Form alone is divine.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)