Blindness in King Lear

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Blindness is defined as, according to dictionaries, “unable to see and lacking the sense of sight”, but in King Lear, written by William Shakespeare, it has a relatively new definition. Blindness, as Shakespeare portrays, not only a physical inability to see, but also a mental flaw that some characters present in this tragic play. King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester are the two characters who make up the parallel “double plot” of the tragedy caused of their lack of sight, mental blindness. They both undergo a very similar plot and suffer from their false decisions, the ones they feel very remorseful of later on. In other words, such blindness is the root of false decisions that leads to disasters. The interaction of physical blindness and mental blindness has been dramatically portrayed in the play. To clarify, since their blurred sight has not been cleared until the end, the realization of the statement in the middle of the play, “I am a man more sinn’d against than sinning” (3.4.60-61), is not reasonably forceful.

Lear’s lack of sight has been the most important theme that he is blindest one among all the characters. Due to his social situation, the king of British, he supposes to be the one who have extraordinary wisdom and skills to make sensible choices and to rationally manage his power. However, his mental blindness avoids him to do so. First of all, as a king, he has to be responsible for his kingdom that he should stay as a king until he dies, not ignoring to see the order of chain of being and renouncing his monarchial power and handing it over to his daughters. In Act 1, he plans to offer one of three parts of his kingdom to each of his daughters. According to the idea of “The Great Chain of Being”, “the structure of...

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...t is to see things with eyes. However, this solution comes up too late to avoid the tragedy happening, the once supreme king has fallen to a heartbreaking status and eyeless but recovering Gloucester is considering to be as mad as the king so that he wouldn’t have to deal with this depressing situation he has as he says: “The king is mad. How stiff is my vile sense, that I stand up, and have ingenious feeling of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract.” (4.6. 305-307)

Such downfall is devastating for both Lear and Gloucester, and mental blindness is the cause of it. As a result, they cannot blame that “I am a man more sinn’d against than sinning”, because the origin comes from themselves. It’s an impressive lesson for everyone living in this physical world that our eyes can only see the surface of objects and our hearts can see through the essential of objects.

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