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King Lear Post
One of the most interesting parallels in William Shakespeare's tragic play King Lear (beginning on page 1143 of the Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. I) is that between the title character and the Earl of Gloucester in regards to their children. Both have children that betray and use them, and both suffer maladies because of it, as King Lear goes mad, and Gloucester goes blind. In some ways, both the betrayal of these two nobles by their children and the afflictions that follow can be seen as a sort of retribution for the ways they treated their children -- Lear for so quickly cutting off Cordelia and Gloucester both for his treatment of Edmond and for his willingness to so quickly mistrust the honorable Edgar. Their afflictions even seem to suit there personalities and their crimes against their children, in a sense.
Lear laid a mental trap for himself in the beginning of the play, in the challenge he presented to his three daughters. When Cordelia answered in a way he did not like, he allowed a distemper of his mind -- and misguided hurt at her mental acuity -- get the better of him. For that reason, going mad is the perfect punishment. He led his mind into falsehoods through anger, and his mind essentially rebelled. In this light, it is somewhat ironic when Cordelia -- whose banishment was the source for Lear's madness, in this reading -- exclaims "he was met even now / As mad as the vexed sea" (IV, iv, 1-2). His madness brings her compassion, and ultimately his salvation.
Just so, Gloucester would not let himself see what his treatment of the bastard Edmond was doing to his son early in the play, and was easily fooled into seeing his noble son as a sort of traitor. These tricks of the eye made him blind, and he actually wishes he were mad: "Better I were distract. / So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs, / And woes by wrong imaginations lose / The knowledge of themselves." (IV, iv, 303-6). Madness would not be the punishment for Gloucester that it is for Lear, but instead his blindness is both felt as a heavier affliction and yet allows his son to fool him and also lead him to redemption.
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