Tricky and scurrilous : on the creation of games

Abstract EN

This paper presents a brief game-theoretic study of Jose Saramago's Blindness (1995), and Elizabeth Moon's The Speed of Dark (2002).

The two novels discuss the resilience of decision-making in the face of sudden epidemics like blindness and genetic disorders like autism.

By applying a group of game-theoretic notions and strategies such as (cooperative games, non-cooperative games, stag-hunt, prisoner's dilemma and incomplete information), the paper aims at revealing the mechanism of choices in the individual/ society games under the constraints of distrust, uncertainty and ableism.

To achieve this, this study interprets each novel as a game and its characters as the players who control the game.

Also, it highlights factors that affect rational choices in the social context, represented in Richard Thaler contributions about the constraints of decision-making such as self-control, bounded rationality and social preferences.

In conclusion, by merging the firm rationality of game theory and the bounded rationality of Thaler's theory, the study hopes for suggesting a realistic interpretation of choices in the two novels.