H. G. Wells’ 1904 short story tells a tale of hubris and subverted expectations; the author, an early twentieth-century writer who contributed to the nineteenth-century birth of early science fiction, wrote about novel settings, fantastic technology, and unrecognizable potentials. However, his work often contained a didactic, moralistic element that commented on contemporary society, as the 1904 “The Country of the Blind” does. The short story is an early effort in disability studies, intending to reveal the sociocultural difficulties of existing in a society that can neither understand nor cater to one’s needs. It is a short-form effort of literary compassion, told by an unnamed narrator who reveals little of himself. 

The story begins with a framing device⁠—an introductory tale set within the main story to contextualize the forthcoming events—and uses the second-hand retelling of the experiences of an isolated refugee from the country of the blind to explain the setting and people that Nuñez will eventually encounter. In doing so, the narrator introduces himself and explains that he writes as a storyteller might, speaking in myth and legend. From this framing context, which Wells’ poses as historical, the narrator then leaps to the tale itself, introducing the proud man whose experience of disability will profoundly humble him.

From this heavily historicized start, the author embarks on a complex narrative that successfully subverts the meaning of disability. Stumbling into an idyllic society populated only by those who cannot see, the protagonist anticipates a position of authority but is instead disfavored by the townspeople, many of whom find him repellent and pitiful. In taking readers to a place where it is a burden to be able-bodied in the standard context, Wells makes an early contribution to the theory of disability as a social-cultural construct.

Nuñez nearly conquers Parascotopetl, “the Matterhorn of the Andes,” before falling from its peaks into the country of the blind. Once there, he falls further still. The context for normality and self-sufficiency does not accommodate his physical needs. He is disabled by the constructs of this society just as the blind people of the valley would be disabled by the constructs of the societies beyond the mountains. Nuñez is not a king among these people, but a deficient member of the underclass. When he falls in love, he is beaten by men who cannot abide his desire to marry a normal, sightless woman because it would corrupt their race. When the blind doctors declare Nuñez’s eyes to be the source of his inadequacies, he agrees to have them removed. He knows he must adapt to his environment. It will not adapt to him. 

Nuñez abandons his plan to remain in the country of the blind on what is to be his final day with sight. He realizes that the procedure is misguided; his experiences have already differentiated him. He chooses the more difficult path, one that only he can traverse, to leave the valley. It is unclear if he makes it over the mountains, but at the story’s close, he is far higher than he could have reached had he changed himself to be more like those around him.