Examples Of Blindness In King Lear

Blindness is a powerful weapon that is able to influence many causing them to make many irrational decisions, thus being able to affect the fate of an entire kingdom. Within King Lear, Shakespeare forces the reader to question many emotional and social issues, one of which being blindness. Many characters throughout this play are blind to the truth, which essentially leads to their demise. King Lear himself struggles with blindness when faced with challenges and decision making. His lack of judgement, naive nature, and his hastiness lead to his fatal demise. Along with King Lear, Gloucester is blind to many situations he encounters, which leads to his mental and physical deconstruction. If he was aware of the truth, many of the unfortunate …show more content…
Being the ruler of his kingdom Lear has many vital responsibilities, through the lack of sight of his daughters he essentially sets his kingdom up for failure. Lear eventually realizes the mistakes he has made in trusting the wrong daughters when he is begins to lose himself, "If it be you that stir these daughters' hearts/ Against their father, fool me not so much/ To bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger,/ And let not women's weapons, water-drops,/ Stain my man's cheeks! No, you unnatural hags..." (II. iv. 308-312). When Goneril and Regan both betray Lear, he realizes that his daughters true intentions are not what they led him to believe. Due to this, Lear is left powerless and his kingdom is now in the hands of his daughters who are even more power hungry than he himself is. This causes his daughters to lose sight of what is right and their only true plan is to destroy whoever stands in their way. Therefore, if Lear was aware of his daughters true self many people would not be harmed, such as Gloucester, and Lear would still be ruling. If Lear were to have seen the true purpose of each of his daughters, Cordelia would not have been disowned and she would have been granted her portion of the land. By Cordelia staying in Lear Kent would not have been banished and more people would have been on Lear's side, thus a less likely chance of him going mad and his elder daughter's taking over. In Sarah Roberts article "Sightlines: The 'Limits of illusions' in Oedipus Tyrannos and King Lear" she documents how blindness is connected to power and insight. She argues that if the characters were more level headed, many unfortunate things would not happen. Due to Lear being "blind" to the truth about his daughters, he betrays Cordelia who turns out to be the only daughter that genuinely cares about him. Instead, he trusts the daughters that ultimately strip him of