The Concept Of Blindness In Shakespeare's King Lear

To see or Not so see Blindness can be interpreted in many different ways, whether being referred to in the forms of physical, emotional or spiritual. As a society when we think of blindness we often think of the physical inability of the eyes to see, however we learn that in King Lear by William Shakespeare that the idea of blindness is not always going to be associated with the physical ability to see but can be symbolic to the other various forms. Whether it is emotional, physical or spiritual, blindness is defined as unable to see; lacking the sense of sight; or just being sightless. Shakespeare believes that as human beings, we often place all of our trust within people blindly which causes us to suffer due to making the decision based

King Lear attained the highest position in society, and with the job he held of being king, he should have been able to distinguish the good from bad, very easily however due to his lack of sight this prevented him to do so. Shakespeare established Lears first encounter of blindness very early on in the play with his brilliant idea of a love test. The love test that King Lear requested both Regan and Goneril deceived him with lies that he was looking forward to hearing, but with Cordelia the one who actually loved him the most was not able to deliver such lies as her older sister King Lear banishes her from the kingdom with the following quote:

“..................................for we Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see That face of her again. Therefore be gone Without our grace, our love, our Benison.” ( I. I.

But it is up to us an individual to separate what we want to hear verses the truth because as demonstration King lear listened to the flattering words of Goneril and Regan which lead him down the road of betrayal and once he ultimately realized the mistake he did it was too late. If King Lear had listened to what Cordelia or even Kent all of the heart ache and pain could have been prevented. No matter how harsh or how true something may be present itself, it is better to listen and not be blinded by the lies. It 's better to stick to the evil that you know rather than the good that you don 't