Blindness

Blindness

1. Metaphor

   • L's inability to recognise his daughters' motives = catalyst that leads to own cognitive disintegration.
     • L asks if ayone can recognise him as he no longer recognises himself. - curses his tears as sign of weakness and threatens to tear out his own eyes, foreshadowing G's blindness.
       • Storm = decent into madness - madness = way to truth? Edg - truthful character - pretends to be mad 'Poor Tom' - L looks up to him "noble philosopher" -
         • KL seems to have come to 'see' but doubted at end when C dies, refusing reality. McEvoy - KL dies in moment of self-deception - no anagnorsis/revelation.
     • first error - division of kingdom by asking "which of you shall we say doth love us most"
   • G tells L she values him more than eyesight - introducing theme - ironic - later gouges out G's eyes.
   • Edg - says its better to know where you stand than to be flattered - reminded of way L encouraged his daughters to flatter him and can appreciate truth in Edg's insight.
   • L & G understand - insight and self-knowledge are not dependent on external attributes but are products of an inner wisdom.
   • "Tis the time's plague when madmen lead the blind" - G - irony G is eventually blinded and led by Poor Tom.
   • "Fathers that wear rags do make their children blind; But fathers that bare bags, shall see their children kind." - F speaks ominously of fortune favouring wealthy - materialistic view - since L has given money to daughters - should expect no more kindness from them.

2. Reality

   • Only after G's eyes are brutally torn out is he able to 'see' the truth - gains insight.
     • true understanding only comes when one is able to look beyond what has been taken for granted - eyes for G, wealth and power for L
       • "I have no way and therefore want no eyes. I stumbled when i saw." - despair - lost without eyes and questions family values.
       • Anagnorsis - recognition of tragic plight - typical of tragedy - realisation but often too late. Shift from ignorance to knowledge.
         • KL's anagnorsis - political and revolutionary - not personal. - recognition that destruction was produced by kind of society over which he presided
       • Heilman - "The blind man sees because he can have insight into the divine reality. The sanity of the mad is that they can understand eternal truth."
     • G tells L that even though he is blind he understands the ways of the world - "I see it feelingly"
     • "Pluck out his eyes" - G - imperative.
     • error - treatment of illegitimate son - epithets - "whoreson", "knave", "issue" - typical of tragedy - G misjudges his sons
       • Hamartia - fatal error of judgement - story of Oedipus - End of Act 1 - epiphany - but doesn't know about subplot. Results in reversal of fortune = recognition.

3. highlight moral lessons of play - what happens to characters is dependent on what they choose to see or not to see in the world around them

   • "See better, Lear" - K - literal - ageing man and metaphorical - becoming mentally infirm
     • Play = repercussions of blindness - fall occurs early in play - long time to express what he has learned after having lost daughters, followed, throne and reduces to destitution in storm.
       • Debasement - at lowest point - KL could have avoided so has no dignity in debasement.
   • Ideas of seeing and not seeing are central to the play - central to a tragedy
     • only through violent destruction = nature of unjust society revealed - potential for a change? - tragedy = knowledge and enlightenment - which comes through seeing - end of play = hope - corrupt characters gone.

4. for both L & G - consequences of blindness can't be reversed, but both are given opportunity for redemption in the end.

5. Fool - paradoxical function is to offer insight - tries to help L see he is responsible for causing his own problems. L is gruff with him but is fond and allows him to speak freely, on some level recognises truth of what he says. - KL's conscience? - F is outsider - sees reality but isn't listened to - those who are displaced are genuinely more insightful - ironic - not until KL was displace that he could see.

6. L - ashamed of way he treated C - refuses to see her.

   • "The jewels of our father with wash'd eyes C leads you" - C 1.1 - 'wash'd eyes' - clarity of sight and implication that she can see where L cannot.