Papers > Novels > King Lear Theme of Blindness
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King Lear Theme of Blindness
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One of the recurring themes in Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear is that of sight and the relevance of clear vision. ... The five characters found to be the most important to the theme include two characters that were initially “blind” and three characters with clear vision. The two blind characters are King Lear himself and the Earl of Gloucester. The three important characters who have clear vision through the entire play include Lear’s adviser, the Earl of Kent, Lear’s daughter, Cordelia and the illegitimate son of Gloucester, Edmund. ... Granted, the blindness of King Lear and Gloucester are the eventual cause of the deaths in the play, but Shakespeare never portrays neither Lear nor Gloucester as particularly villainous characters.
King Lear remains blind for the majority of the play. ... Lear’s blindness also makes him susceptible to manipulation by his two eldest daughters, Goneril and Regan. While Lear can physically see, his inability to judge character demonstrates his figurative inability to see. Lear is unable to distinguish characters from their true self due to the fact that he cannot see into other peoples real character. During the scene where Lear is enraged at Cordelia, Kent tries to reason with him saying that Goneril and Regan are fakes. Lear, unaware of this, yells in opposition to Kent “Out of my sight!” to which Kent responds, “See better, Lear, and let me still remain” (1. ... By using the obvious reference to sight, Kent demonstrates his awareness of Lear’s blindness. Here, Kent, one of Lears followers, is the first person to directly tell the King that he has made mistakes concerning the partition of his sovereignty. Kent is aware of Lear’s fault in banishing Cordelia from England, because he sees Cordelia’s true, honest nature and attempts to convince Lear of his mistake. Rather than take this as friendly advice, Lear blindly mistakes it for a personal attack. Unlike Lear who shows blindness in judgement, Kent is able to see through the superficiality of the elder daughters confessions of love. ... Lear tells Kent he never wants to see him again and displays a great extent of outrage voicing, "Come not between the dragon and his wrath"(1. ... Kent being the appointed counsellor of Lear, was just trying to do the best for Lear, but Lear could not see that. Later, Kents argument with Lear worsens and Lear lays banishment upon Kent
Oh thine allegiance, hear me!
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Paper Information
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Title: King Lear Theme of Blindness
Words: 2020
Rating: None
Pages: 8.1
submitted by: ghazaleh
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