The tragic errors that King Lear, Gloucester and Oswald made in misjudging people show a lack of insight into the true character of those around them, ultimately resulting in their own downfall.
King Lear is an old man and cannot handle the full responsibility of being a king at his age. He decides to divide his kingdom up between his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. Lear says whoever expresses the most love for him will receive the greatest amount of land. Goneril and Regan speak artificial words of love to make Lear believe they love him. Cordelia on the other hand, refuses to praise him because she has shown him love her whole life and doesn’t believe she should have to praise him, that he should already know the extent of her love for him. This greatly upsets Lear and he hastily says, “Thou hast her, France: let her be there; for we / Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see / That face of hers again / Therefore be gone / Without our love, our grace, our bension” (Shakespeare 11). Lear shows total blindness towards the artificial praise of love from his daughters Goneril and Regan. Cordelia is the one who loves him most and has shown so all her life, but he cannot see it at this point.
After Kent attempts to warn King Lear of the possible outcomes, he too is banished. Kent returns in the disguise of Caius, a commoner offering his services to Lear. Failing to recognize Kent in his disguise, Lear accepts his offer. This provides a dramatic metaphor for his failure to see his daughters’ true colours. Goneril and Regan prove time after time they have a complete disregard for Lear’s old age and needs. They drive him to insanity by changing their minds about the amount of Lear’s knights allowed in their homes.
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They finally state that Lear is allowed no knights to accompany him in his stay with them. Lear responds in an outrage, begging for divine justice and for the gods to bear witness to how he has been wronged. He proclaims he will have revenge on these “unnatural hags”(Shakespeare 320). Goneril and Regan banish Lear out into the pouring rain and tell him never to return. While it is clear that Lear is going insane, ironically, he is finally starting to gain some insight into his daughters, who have violated the laws of love, duty and family.
Lear reflects in the pouring rain that he has spent too little time thinking about his poor subjects, who were regularly exposed to such hardships. He decides that if powerful people spent more time thinking about such matters, they would be more generous with what they have. This moment of chaos in the rainstorm again shows Lear has finally gained some insight into the lives of those less privileged, which he lacked when he was king.
Lear ends up traveling to Dover to meet Cordelia who has been planning his escape to France this whole time. Lear refuses to see Cordelia out of shame at “his own unkindness” (Shakespeare 51). He expresses that he gave Cordelia’s rights to his wicked daughters. Lear has been moved by the extremity of his situation to finally see his children for who they really are. His insight required a metaphorical blindness of madness. Consequently, Cordelia and Lear are captured and brought under Edmund’s orders to be imprisoned and killed (made to look like suicides). When Edmund is on his deathbed he explains the plan to Edgar and Albany and tries to stop the situation. Unfortunately, before order can be restored, Cordelia is killed before help arrives. Lear ends up fainting, and dying of a broken heart and extreme despair. If Lear had not misjudged his daughters so extremely he would not have been put in this position. These series of unfortunate events are what ultimately lead Lear to his own downfall.
Gloucester, a member of the hierarchy has and always will be loyal to King Lear. After he witnessed Edmund conspicuously hiding a letter in his pocket he demands to read it. The letter was forged by Edmund, his illegitimate son to make it look like it was from Edgar, Gloucester’s legitimate son. The letter explained that “Edgar” was plotting against Gloucester and his riches. Gloucester reacts by saying, “O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! / Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! / Worse than brutish! Go sirrah, seek him. I’ll apprehend him / Abominable villain! Where is he?” (Shakespeare 37). Without any further investigation, Gloucester immediately believes what Edmund tells him and concludes that Edgar is a “villain”.
Gloucester’s failure to seek both ideas of this story before placing all his trust into Edmund’s letter demonstrates how Gloucester blinds himself from the truth through ignorance. Gloucester’s misconception of the truth due to his lack of consideration causes him to misconceive the true nature of both his sons. Edmund continues to manipulate Gloucester by cutting his own arm and saying Edgar fought him after Edmund disagreed to killing Gloucester and then “escaped”. This provides yet another instance of manipulating vision in order to produce blindness. Gloucester has entirely misread his sons. He uses his authority to reverse the usual legal order, preferring the illegitimate to the legitimate.
Gloucester ends up confiding in Edmund that he does not like the “unnatural dealing” (Act 3 Scene 3) that general and Regan have shown to their father. He then goes on to explain that there is a division between Albany and Cornwall and that he needs Edmund to distract Cornwall while he sneaks off the aid Lear. Still completely blind to the potential risk, Gloucester places his trust in the complete wrong son. Gloucester meets “Poor Tom”, and fails to recognize his own son. This echoes Lear’s failure to recognize his long-faithful servant Kent, providing a literal emphasis of Lear’s “blindness” to the true qualities of his daughters. Edmund ends up betraying Gloucester and telling his plans to help Lear to Cornwall. Cornwall took this as a personal attack and decides to gauge Gloucester’s eyes out. “Out vile jelly!” (Shakespeare 101).
Cornwall says this right as he gouged out Gloucester’s first eye. Cornwall refers to Gloucester’s eyes as vile because of Gloucester’s misdeeds. To call his eyesight bile is actually correct because Gloucester has repeatedly been blind to the behaviours of Edgar and Edmund. First metaphorically for believing that Edgar was plotting against him and then literally not being able to recognize Edgar as Poor Tom. The language of vision and blindness has been metaphorical until this point. Cornwall transforms Gloucester, who once failed to see his son’s true character, into a walking symbol of blindness. Unfortunately by this point it was too late to return. Edgar eventually reveals himself to Gloucester after aiding him post-blinding. Gloucester is so overjoyed that he essentially has a heart-attack and dies. Although Gloucester did gain insight after becoming blind it was too late to turn it around. If he did not mistake Edmund for his loyal son, none of this would have happened to him and he would not have died in that scenario.
Oswald is loyal to Regan, so he has a complete lack of insight into the situation with King Lear. He doesn’t see that it is not Lear’s fault that he is getting old, but instead just listens to Regan who has a complete lack of respect and love for her father. Regan orders Oswald to be rude and disrespect Lear’s knights in order to get in his head. When Lear is expressing his feeling of negligence to a knight, Oswald enters the room. Lear says “O you sir, you, come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?” Oswald replies “my lady’s father” (Act 1 Scene 4).
This drives Lear absolutely mad. Oswald’s complete lack of respect for the loyalty he should hold towards the king is what contributes to his madness. Instead Oswald listens to Regan that Lear has bad intentions for the kingdom. Oswald is totally blind to the situation that Lear does intact have good intentions but he is getting old, therefore needs some assistance in making decisions. As the play progresses Regan refers to Gloucester by expressing she will show favour to whoever kills “that blind traitor” (Shakespeare 41). Oswald fails to see that Gloucester is not a traitor but instead is loyal to the king as he rightfully should be.
Oswald rushes off and looks for Gloucester on his way to deliver some letters. Oswald shows the blind willingness to obey in order to ingratiate himself with powerful people, which is exactly the trait for which Kent mocked him in Act 2. Oswald ends up running into the blind but now insightful Gloucester and Edgar. Edgar fights back and kills Oswald after Oswald tries to kill Gloucester. Oswald’s blindness to the situation between the division of the kingdom is ultimately what caused his own downfall. If he just did what he believed in instead of what he was told to do, his situation would have a different outcome.
