Blindness is a very important concept that appears through the whole play of King Lear. Let's see what it represents.
On the one hand, we have King Lear who makes her daughters express with words how much they love him to decide which one of them will deserve the biggest piece of the kingdom. During this scene, his blindness does not allow him to go beyond rhetoric. Furthermore, he enjoys so much being flattered that when Cordelia refuses to do it under the premise that words are lies and silence is truth, he gets furious. Here, he made the huge mistake of disowning Cordelia for disloyalty and he orders her " out of his sight" at which Kent tells him " see better, Lear" suggesting that he is wrong because Cordelia is the good daughter and that he's blind since he cannot see the truth. So we can identify a metaphoric blindness.
On the other hand, there is Gloucester who is the mirror image of King Lear as he makes the same mistake of distrusting the good son Edgar, instead of Edmund, the evil one. However, here blindness is depicted metaphorically as well as literally. The former when he cannot recognize his good son disguised as a beggar and the latter when his eyes were plucked out.
References:
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007.
I believe that we are always in way blind. Especially when we have some power perhaps, is power what makes us blind? In addition to this we have to take into consideration that when we are immerse into our own problems, we cannot see more than what we are looking at. Sometimes the fact of being in the situation makes us blind. That is why I believe that it is important to take advice from others who are not in the same position that us and maybe can see other angles of the same story.
ResponderEliminarRegarding your question, I think that in Act 4 they come to realise how much blindness has made them take the wrong decisions.
I agree with what you said by you and by Pia, but I have to add that everyone is blind when we hear things that do not please us. The King wanted to hear compliments, but Cordelia demostrated her love in a way that didn't please him, so he got furious. As I mentioned, everyone has felt that way at some point, can blindness as well be faked just for the sake of being pleased?
ResponderEliminar