King Lear And Blindness In Odysseus

Sight is one of the most important of the five senses and without seeing, one will doubt as to what is in front. In Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, the theme of blindness is key where it is not just defined as not seeing with one’s eyes, but also the inability to see the truth and what is really happening around one’s self. In Homer’s epic, The Odyssey, Odysseus encounters a blind prophet and also blinds a Cyclops. King Lear and Gloucester are very similar in the fact that they are blind to actions happening around them, while Odysseus is encountering blindness around him at key moments in his journey back home. From the very beginning, King Lear is “blind” to how his daughters’ true feelings are towards him. In scene 1 of Act I, King Lear asks his daughters which one of them loves him more, so that he could decide how he will split up the kingdom. Goneril answers by stating that she …show more content…
In the beginning of scene 2 of Act 1, Edmund is confessing how he is going receive the land and that it is not his fault that he is illegitimate. As Gloucester enters, Edmund hides the paper with the plan in his pockets, and Gloucester asks why he put away the letter, and continues to ask what exactly the paper is about. Edmund answers “nothing, my lord’ (Shakespeare 1.2.33). After having a conversation about if it was really nothing, Edmund finally reveals the letter but pending the evil schemes described in the letter on his brother, Edgar. Gloucester does asks Edmund if Edgar written the letter and “has ever sounded like this before” (Shakespeare 1.2.73), which seems as though he is in some kind of disbelief about this plan of action, but after hearing Edmund say he heard something before, he quickly believes that Edgar, his legitimate son, is willing to get rid of him. Gloucester does not see Edmund for who he really is, to take fact he is believing in what Edmund is telling him about his own