Regarding to the character of the Earl of Gloucester I thought about two questions:
• Why does Gloucester believe Edmund’s accusations against Edgar without concrete suspicions and without any discussion with Edgar?
• Why does Shakespeare make Gloucester suffer this cruel fate of loosing his eyes by being blinded?
I suppose we can find the answer in Gloucester’s own character, which has a part of Edmund and a part of Edgar.
Edmund represents the son of Gloucester’s illegitimate relationship, and he is the devious, scheming and egocentric part of the complex character of Gloucester. Edgar is the legal son and reflects the honest, reliable and loyal part of Gloucester’s character.
There is the fight between the two parts of a character; we could say the fight between good and evil as a main question of mankind. In Shakespeare’s play Gloucester is the complex character in this tension between the two poles.
At first evil ideas, represented by Edmund, overwhelm Gloucester’s thinking and acting.
Only after he is blinded he realizes his actual blindness and he says in Act 4, Scene1:
”I have no way, and therefore want no eyes:
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ‘tis seen
Our means secure us and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath,
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again.”
In this situation the part of Edgar begins to take (again) the control of Gloucester’s mind. It is a long and hard way represented by the scenes in which Edgar leads his blind father and prevents him from suicide, teaching him to accept his fate. In the end of the play it is Gloucester’s son Edgar, the honourable character, who “wins” and who is worth to rule a kingdom. Edgar speaks the last words in the tragedy:
“The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”
Annette Schmitter
• Why does Gloucester believe Edmund’s accusations against Edgar without concrete suspicions and without any discussion with Edgar?
• Why does Shakespeare make Gloucester suffer this cruel fate of loosing his eyes by being blinded?
I suppose we can find the answer in Gloucester’s own character, which has a part of Edmund and a part of Edgar.
Edmund represents the son of Gloucester’s illegitimate relationship, and he is the devious, scheming and egocentric part of the complex character of Gloucester. Edgar is the legal son and reflects the honest, reliable and loyal part of Gloucester’s character.
There is the fight between the two parts of a character; we could say the fight between good and evil as a main question of mankind. In Shakespeare’s play Gloucester is the complex character in this tension between the two poles.
At first evil ideas, represented by Edmund, overwhelm Gloucester’s thinking and acting.
Only after he is blinded he realizes his actual blindness and he says in Act 4, Scene1:
”I have no way, and therefore want no eyes:
I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ‘tis seen
Our means secure us and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abused father’s wrath,
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again.”
In this situation the part of Edgar begins to take (again) the control of Gloucester’s mind. It is a long and hard way represented by the scenes in which Edgar leads his blind father and prevents him from suicide, teaching him to accept his fate. In the end of the play it is Gloucester’s son Edgar, the honourable character, who “wins” and who is worth to rule a kingdom. Edgar speaks the last words in the tragedy:
“The weight of this sad time we must obey,
Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.
The oldest hath borne most; we that are young
Shall never see so much, nor live so long.”
Annette Schmitter
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