The Blind Seeing Eyes

The Blind Seeing Eyes

Being one who has read, played-out, analyzed, and scholarly written on multiple works of Shakespeare, King Lear, in my opinion, happens to be one of Shakespeare’s most antagonistic and mosaic works. Though this play has no one main character, such as the plays Hamlet or Antony and Cleopatra, that dictate and create the flow of the play, this play however, does treat in the most vibrant and concentrated language a myriad of problems. The tragedy’s overall effect is heart defeating, leaving a troubled feeling and, in its own fashion, is almost undermining to an extent. One after another, in rapid succession and sometimes simultaneously, problems present themselves for the characters of the play to tackle. King Lear is a goldmine for Sight Versus Insight reading.

“As the play opens, Lear demands a display of love from his three daughters before dividing his kingdom among them. His youngest daughter Cordelia, though loyal, refuses to take part in this empty ceremony and Lear banishes her.”(1) The most blind of all is undoubtedly King Lear, even though his physical vision was normal. Because of Lear’s high ranking in society, he was supposed to be able to distinguish the rights from the wrongs, as wise as he was; unfortunately, his lack of mind sight impeded him from doing so. His mind’s eye was clouded by his position as the King. Lear’s first trace of his blindness occurred at the beginning of the play.   This, from a Sight Versus Insight point of view, is exactly where all of Lear’s as well as others agonies and misfortunes institute, and continue to proliferate from. The play unfolds around 800 B.C.E. This means that the Feudal System was in effect, thus allowing Lear to believe that he could do whatever he should fancy. Lear’s uncomfortable demand for their display of love, before his division of land, is him exerting his position as king, his “god given right”, to get what he wanted. He was the Alpha and the Omega. His word was...