Description
Their legs and necks are bound, forcing them to remain motionless, looking only ahead and behind them. A fire burns brightly in the distance, and between the fire and the bound figures is a raised platform. Along the platform stands a low wall, like a barrier separating the audience from the bound and the magicians performing their tricks.
Saramago’s allegory suggests that modern man lives in the same condition as Plato’s bound figures, spending his time confined in cramped rooms, gazing at images on television and computer screens, far removed from direct contact with nature or his fellow human beings. This is why the Allegur family, around whom the novel’s events revolve, choose to abandon everything and embark on a journey with no known destination, without knowing how or where it will end.
The man driving the small, enclosed van is Cipriano Allegur, a potter by trade, and sixty-four years old, though he appears younger at first glance. The man sitting next to him is his son-in-law, Marcial Gacho, who is not yet old.
Yet, his features belie his age. As we have seen, each of them bears a strange surname, the origin, meaning, and reason for which remain unknown to them.
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