PUNISHMENT AND PROPHECY:
Blindness in Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and Jane Eyre
by
Kaley Jemison
A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of
The Wilkes Honors College
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences
with a Concentration in Literature
Wilkes Honors College of
Florida Atlantic University
Jupiter, Florida
May 2016
PUNISHMENT AND PROPHECY
By
Kaley Jemison
This thesis was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s thesis advisor, Dr. Michael
Harrawood, and has been approved by the members of her/his supervisory committee. It was
submitted to the faculty of The Honors College and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences.
SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE:
___________________________
Dr. Michael Harrawood
____________________________
Dr. Gavin Sourgen
______________________________
Dean Jeffrey Buller, Wilkes Honors College
____________
Date
ii
ABSTRACT
Author:
Kaley Jemison
Title:
Punishment and Prophecy: Blindness in Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and Jane
Eyre
Institution:
Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University
Thesis Advisor:
Dr. Michael Harrawood
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts in Liberal Arts and Sciences
Concentration:
Literature
Year:
2016
This paper will examine the significance of blindness in Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and
Jane Eyre. In each of these canonical works, the character presents a moral infringement and
consequently is castigated through the loss of sight. For Oedipus and Rochester this is a sexual
transgression while for Gloucester, blindness is a reflection of his ignorance of his son’s
duplicity. This literary commonality implements vision loss as a punishment for immorality. Yet,
from this loss of sight also stems transcendence. Paradoxically, in losing their sight, the
characters garner a greater sensory awareness and prophetic insight as Oedipus sees his future
and Rochester experiences a telepathic exchange with Jane. This paper will also examine the
portrayals of blind characters and how they reflect historic shifts in society’s conceptualization
of the disabled community.
iii
To professors Michael Harrawood, Gavin Sourgen, and Yasmine Shamma for teaching
me to explore the many facets of literature and to my family for their love in raising me
to see beyond my disability
iv
Table of Contents
Introduction
1
1. The Seer who is Blind
5
2. “From this Hour go in Darkness”
8
3. “See Better, Lear”
12
4. Pluck out an Eye and Cut off the Right Hand
20
Conclusion
28
Works Cited
31
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Introduction
In her poem, “The Location of the Poet” from Bread, Blood, and Poetry, Adrienne Rich
declares, “I look everywhere for signs of that fusion I have glimpsed in the women’s movement,
[…] I turn to Toni Cade Bambara’s The Salt Eaters or Ama Ata Aidoo’s Our Sister Killjoy […] ;
to paintings by Frida Kahlo or Jacoh Lawrence, to poems by Dionue Brand or Judy Grahm.” As
a Jewish, lesbian woman, Rich struggled to find some reflection of herself in literature. While
she did not discover this representation in novels, she found the echo of her emotions and
political convictions in art and poetry. As a woman who is legally blind, I, like Rich, have sought
to find a representation of my struggles and myself in literature. Throughout my adolescence, I
encountered very few portrayals of blind individuals in contemporary works, so like Rich, I
identified with texts whose characters mirrored my other attributes and sentiments. Upon
commencing my undergraduate studies in literature, I turned my search to the past and began
perusing older texts.
As one of the oldest and most prolific illustrations of blindness, the Bible
establishes a symbolic connection between the loss of vision and spirituality. This merging is
most evident in “The Conversion of Paul at Damascus” in which God sends forth lightening that
blinds Saul, castigating him for persecuting Christians. The Lord subsequently restores Saul’s
sight once he began to worship Jesus. His change in name from Saul to Paul signifies this
conversion. This story articulates a theme of blindness as a means of punishment and spiritual
conversion. Through his loss of sight, Paul became profoundly devout and benevolent. The
Roman Catholic story of Saint Lucy also demonstrates this relationship between loss of sight and
spirituality: Born in Syracuse , Italy, Lucy was betrothed to a pagan man. A devout Christian,
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Lucy refused and plucked out her eyes, so that no man would be tempted by her beauty and she
could remain Christ’s bride. After Lucy refuses to marry, her mother grew ill, so the women
went to pray at the tomb of Saint Agatha. There, Lucy received a vision which revealed she
would become a saint and gave her insight regarding how to heal her mother. Lucy miraculously
cured her mother and God restored her sight. However, upon returning home, she was murdered
by her pagan suitor and became a martyr. Like in the story of Paul at Damascus, Lucy’s loss of
sight draws her closer to the divine and imbues her with prophetic knowledge, further indicating
the connection between blindness and transcendence . Curiously, this literary representation of
blindness does not alter over the progression of time and stylistic movements. The stories of Paul
and Saint Lucy ripple throughout the cannon as Oedipus blinds himself to purge himself of his
sins, Gloucester walks sightless to Dover, and lightning strikes the chestnut tree, foreshadowing
Rochester’s vision loss. This enduring literary trope establishes vision loss as a symbol for
heightened spirituality which aluminates the temptations of the outer world and centers on the
character’s inner virtue. Due to disability studies’ relatively recent emergence as a subfield of
literature, few critics have thoroughly examined the portrayals of blind individuals throughout
literary movements. As a blind academic, in Sight Unseen, Georgina Kleege analyzes the varying
roles of blindness in literature and film. Kleege posits that Oedipus and Rochester’s blinding are
a punishment for excessive sexuality and that this impairment supplants their concupiscence with
prophetic knowledge and awareness. However, while she does address the connection between
blindness and spirituality, Kleege does not address the longstanding continuity of this link.
Through an analysis of Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and Jane Eyre, I will illuminate the
implementation of blindness and blinding as a means of spiritual purification and transcendence
from before common era to the present. In addition to examining the symbolic role of vision loss,
2
my argument will begin to explore society’s past and present perceptions of blind and visually
impaired individuals that are perpetuated by this lasting literary trope.
3
4
The Seer who is Blind
Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex conveys a discourse on blindness through its opening with
the blind prophet, Tiresias, the sight-centered diction that surrounds Oedipus, and in the
protagonist’s self-blinding. However, the majority of academic scholarship predominantly
examines Oedipus’s sexual deviance and equates his blinding with castration. This act serves to
punish Oedipus for his lust and remove him from earthly temptations. While the play certainly
attenuates a link between sexuality and blindness in the characters of Tiresias and Oedipus, it
also presents blindness as a form of self-punishment. After gouging out his eyes, Oedipus
proclaims, “No more, No more shall you look on the misery about me. The horrors of my own
doing!” (Sophocles 67). He removes his own eyes in an attempt to punish himself for
unknowingly killing his father and begetting children with his mother. This self-inflicted
punishment creates an inversion between sight and perception; when Oedipus possesses sight, he
is metaphorically blind to the identity of Laius’s killer. Conversely, Oedipus’s self-blinding
garners him with prophetic sight, like Tiresias, and begins to glimpse his own future. Through an
analysis of the character of Tiresias, the blindness-centered diction, Oedipus’s self-blinding, and
his consequent portrayal, I will illuminate the role of Oedipus’s self-blinding as it grants him
with a higher awareness. I am indebted to E.R. Dodds’s “Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex”
for its examination of the prophecy’s inevitability and Jean Joseph Goux’s assertion that
Oedipus’s blinding aligns him with the prophet Tiresias in Oedipus Philosopher. In addition to
exposing the relationship between blindness and transcendent knowledge, my analysis will
begin to explore how society views the visually impaired as simultaneously enlightened and
entirely dependent.
5
The mythological prophet, Tiresias, most overtly represents this unity between blindness
and transcendence. The Greek myths which describe the seer’s origin vary. Some state that he
was blinded by the goddess Athena when he came across her bathing. Another posits that Hera
transformed Tiresias into a male when he attempted to separate a pair of copulating snakes.
When Hera finally revoked his punishment and turned Tiresias back into a man, Zeus asked him
which gender experienced the greatest pleasure during sex. Having occupied both genders,
Tiresias attested that women did. Angered by his response, Hera blinded Tiresias. Yet, this lack
of sight gave Tiresias prophetic powers by which he could divine the future from birds’ songs
and interpret Apollo’s oracle. Both myths present Tiresias’s blinding as a punishment for a
sexual transgression. Like Oedipus, Tiresias’s sightlessness serves to remove him from his
corporeal surroundings. The prophet occupies a very liminal space as he remains half male and
half female while also belonging simultaneously to the living and the underworld. These
transient states coupled with his blindness separate Tiresias from all definitive barriers and
elevate his spirituality. Only after his blinding, does Tiresias gain his prophetic powers, become
the God Apollo’s servant, and achieve a tempered immortality. This chronology of changes
signifies his blinding as the origin of this newly, acquired higher knowledge.
The seer’s prophetic knowledge is evident in the opening scene of Oedipus Rex. When,
King Oedipus sends for Creon to visit the oracle to determine what is plaguing the city of
Phoebes. In first presenting the seer, Oedipus emphasizes his capacity to see the truth despite his
blindness: “Tiresias : seer: student of mysteries, of all that’s taught and all that no man tells. […]
Blind though you are you know the city lies sick […] Apollo when we sent to him sent us back
word we are in your hands.” (Sophocles 17). Tiresias’s absent sight grants him access to both
attainable and sacred knowledge and his association with Apollo, the Greek God of prophecy,
6
further signifies his knowledge of the divine. Consequently, while he cannot see the ravished
city, he senses its suffering and , through his prophetic abilities, knows its remedy. He alone
comprehends that Oedipus is the source of this pestilence. His prophecy that Oedipus is the killer
represents the apex of the seer’s divine knowledge. In “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex”,
Dodds examines the prophecy’s inevitability when he articulates, “The oracle was unconditional.
It did not say 'If you do so-and so you will kill your father'; it simply said 'You will kill your
father, you will sleep with your mother.' And what an oracle predicts is bound to happen”
(Dodds 43). The prophecy’s definitive language not only reveals the inevitability of fate in
Oedipus’s incestuous marriage, it also echoes the certainty of Tiresias’s divine knowledge. The
seer’s liminal characterization and lack of vision paradoxically enable him to see Oedipus’s fate.
However, while the seer’s blindness imbues him with higher knowledge, it also renders
him dependent: Enraged by Tiresias’s veiled allusions to his own guilt, Oedipus asserts that if
Teireseas was not blind, he would believe that the seer had killed King Leas. “You planned it.
[…] You all but killed him with your own hands. If you had eyes, I’d say the crime was yours”
(Sophocles 18). The seer’s blindness removes him from any suspicion of murder . He also is
forced to rely on a servant boy to navigate Oedipus’s palace. This illustration of dependency
suggests that Teiresius’s prophetic powers positions him in the temporal to the extent that he
cannot perceive the concrete.
7
“From this Hour go in Darkness”
While Tiresias’s blindness enables him to see the future, Oedipus’s sight blinds him to
the present. This literary inversion between blindness and sight is evident in the diction that
encapsulates the play’s protagonist. Throughout their dialogue, the seer repeatedly describes
Oedipus as “sightless”, “blind”, and “night eyes” He further portrays Oedipus as a blind man
wielding a cane: “And he will go tapping the strange earth with his staff” (Sophocles 24). Like
Paul who wanders the land sightlessly, Oedipus will be turned out to walk the earth dependent,
like Tiresias, on a stick. In “Oedipus the King: A Tragedy of Self-Knowledge”, Laszio Versenyi
attributes Oedipus’s self-blinding to too much sight when he posits, “Oedipus' self-mutilation
8
takes the form of blinding, a self-blinding made necessary by too much sight, […] Sight
blindness, light-darkness, insight-erring, knowledge-ignorance. It is the tension of these
opposites that is the theme of the play” (Vesenyi 25). While I am in accord with Vesenyi’s
assertion that the play pivots on dualities of sight and blindness and ignorance and knowledge, I
do not ascribe Oedipus’s blinding to an over abundance of sight. Rather, his lack of sight
represents his previous ignorance of his parentage. Teiresius illuminates Oedipus’s metaphorical
blindness when he declares, “You mock my blindness, but I say you with both your eyes are
blind. You cannot see the wretchedness of your life. Nor in whose house you live. No, nor with
whom. Who are your father and mother? You do not even know the blind wrongs you have done
them” (Sophocles 20). While confirming his own prophetic knowledge regarding Oedipus’s past
and future, Teireseas claims that it is Oedipus, not he, who is blind as he does not know his true
parentage nor his wife’s true identity. Within these two character portrayals, Sophocles
establishes a paradoxical relationship between sight and perception; Tireseas’s sightlessness
garners him with a higher awareness while Oedipus’s sight inhibits him from recognizing the
truth of his origin and marriage.
Consequently, Oedipus’s self-mutilation reverses his metaphorical blindness by granting
him insight and purging him of his sins. Directly before he pierces his eyes with Jocasta’s pins,
Oedipus proclaims, “No more, no more, shall you look on the misery about me, the horrors of
my own doing […] too long been blind to those for whom I was searching! From this hour, go
in darkness” (Sophocles 68). This blinding acts as a self-induced punishment for his murder and
incest. Oedipus’s blinding also acts as a means of aligning his physical condition with his
metaphorical blindness that derives from his unwillingness to recognize the truth of his
parentage. In actualizing his metaphorical blindness, Oedipus simultaneously seeks to free
9
himself from all visual reminders of his sins and to hide himself from others’ judging gaze: “Or
do you think that my children, born as they were, would be sweet to my eyes? Nor this town
with its high walls […] for the love of God, take me out of Phoebes away from men’s eyes
forever “(Sophocles 71-72). Oedipus seeks to hide himself from others and the source of his
guilt. Like Tiresias, blindness removes him from the physical. Oedipus’s self-exile and
complete dependence on others to guide him transitions him from the physical to the ethereal.
Although subtle, Oedipus’s blindness garners him with a higher awareness. This transcendence
first takes the form of more acute sensory perception. Directly following his self-inflicted
blinding, Oedipus states, “Oh cloud of night, […] Night coming on. I cannot tell how. Again the
pain where I had sight, the flooding pain”(Sophocles 71). Oedipus realizes that it is night , but
cannot determine how he knows this. This knowledge without a perceivable source signifies the
onset of his higher awareness. The fictional proximity between this uprooted knowledge and the
pain in his decimated eyes credits his blindness with this higher knowledge. However, only a
few lines later, Oedipus’s sensory perception magnifies and he is able to determine the source of
his understanding.: “Yet even blind I know who it is that attends me by the voice’s tone”
(Sophocles 70). His rapid adaption to relying on his senses attests the magnified sensory
transcendence associated with blindness. As Goux observes, ““If Oedipus is the source of a new
revelation, it is because in him, are conjoined the knowledge of the young philosopher and the
wisdom of the old sage. The young Oedipus by the experience of blindness gains the knowledge
of Tiresias.” (Goux 194). Through an actualization of his metaphorical blindness, Oedipus
departs from his ignorance and echoes Tiresias's prophetic knowledge in his capacity to
recognize that he must wander the land blindly. Even his resigned, self-reflective tone following
10
his self-induced blinding mirrors that of the seer as through their blindness, both have access to
truth.
In Oedipus Rex, Tiresias embodies the literary connection between blindness and
transcendent knowledge as he, the blind seer, is the only one who knows that Oedipus is the
murderer whom he seeks as well as that he will become blind and “walk the land with a stick.”
Oedipus also attenuates this literary trope as his metaphorical blindness transforms into actual
blindness wherein he is finally able to see his own guilt. Yet, his self-blinding stems from two
paradoxical causes; he seeks to remove those who remind him of his sins from his sight and
therefore purge himself of his sins. Oedipus and the seer’s blindness removes them from the
tangible allowing them to perceive the abstract future and truth. These renderings echo the
portrayal of the blind as able to navigate the incorporeal but entirely dependent in navigating the
concrete.
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“See More, Lear”
While the characters of Lear and Gloucester appear to follow distinctive paths in
Shakespeare’s King Lear (1608), the thematic relationship between sight and truth conjoins
them. Oedipus embodied a transition from metaphorical to physical blindness. Conversely, King
Lear demarcates these states of blindness. Lear is blind to the veracity of Cordelia’s love and his
other daughters’ deception. However, it is Gloucester who actualizes the King’s metaphorical
blindness when Regan and Cornwall stab his eyes. This blinding propels both men into
wandering the land and begins to enable them to see the truth of their families. While Cavanaugh
and Cavell primarily center on the symbolic significance of Gloucester’s blinding, my analysis
will reveal Lear and Gloucester’s recognition of truth and transcendence as it derives from this
blinding. I shall sustain this assertion through an examination of the sight-centered diction that
encapsulates Lear, Gloucester’s blinding, Lear’s wandering in the storm, the scene at Dover, and
Lear’s reunion with Cordelia. In addition to examining the role of blindness as a means of moral
remedification, my analysis will begin to explore the other tropes of blindness and their
representation in past and present views of the visually impaired.
In “Gloucester’s Eyes,” P.V. Kreider reveals that King Lear centers on sight when he
observes, ““Lear and his unnatural daughters contribute, on one side, to his impression that sight
and eyes are the principal substance of the play, so do Gloucester and his illegitimate son”
(Kreider 125). Early on, the play suggests a discourse on blindness when Goneril claims that her
love for her father is, “dearer than eyesight” (Shakespeare 33). This scene, which establishes the
central conflict between Lear and his daughters, also perpetuates a series of allusions to
blindness. From this point forward, Lear is encapsulated by sight-centered diction. He is
described as “clouded eye” and told to “see better”, ironically by Gloucester. These portrayals,
12
coupled with their scene of origin, reveal Lear’s metaphorical blindness; He is blind to the
veracity of Cordelia’s love and his other daughters’ deception. Lear, himself, recognizes the
abnormality of his dismissal of Cordelia and ignorance of Goneril’s avidity when he reflects,
“this is not Lear. Does Lear walk thus speak thus? Where are his eyes? Either his notions weaken
or his discerning” (Shakespeare 54). This question, “where are his eyes?” conveys Lear’s
metaphorical blindness derived from his inability to see the authenticity of his daughters’
affection.
However, Gloucester rather than Lear actualizes this metaphorical blindness. In
Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare, Stanley Cavell posits, ““Gloucester has by
now become not just a figure parallel to Lear, but Lear’s double; he does not merely represent
Lear but is psychologically identical with him. […] the mirror image of everyman gone to
lengths to avoid himself.” (Cavell 52). While both characters appear to parallel one another in
their shared inability to recognize the truth of their children’s affection or deceit, I assert that
Gloucester is not Lear’s double, but rather is his proxy. This instance of another character
suffering on Lear’s behalf first begins with Kent.
As Lear’s servant, Kent acts as his first proxy. Angered by Lear’s riotous soldiers and
Kent’s fighting with Oswald, Regan has Kent put in the stocks. Kent immediately reminds Regan
and Cornwall of his relation to the king following the announcement of his punishment: “Call
not the stocks for me. I serve the King. On whose employment I was sent to you. You shall do
small respect, show too bold malice. Against the grace, stocking his messenger” (Shakespeare
45). By emphasizing that he is the king’s servant, Kent reveals that this punishment is, by
extent, a slight against the king. Consequently, Kent serves as Lear’s whipping boy. In ordering
him to be held in the stocks, Regan sends the message for her father to return to Goneril’s just as
13
her sister forced out her father by widdeling down his retinue of servants and guards. Gloucester
too notes this message to the king when he entreats, “His fault is much, and the good King his
master will check him. […] The King must take it ill. That he, so slightly valued in his
messenger should have him thus restrained” (Shakespeare 86). This repetition of punishing Kent
as an insult to the King reemphasizes the equivacy in castigating one for the other. Furthermore,
Kent and Gloucester’s presence in this scene foreshadows Gloucester’s greater role as Lear’s
proxy and, in hindsight, affirms Kent’s similar cast as the king’s proxy.
Yet, Lear’s metaphorical blindness fully emerges when he stands alone in the storm:
“Blow your winds and crack your cheeks. Rage blow! You cataracts1 and hurricanes.”
(Shakespeare 56). This scene coalesces the play’s many allusions to nature and sight. “Cataracts”
particularly embodies this connection as it gestures to both clouded vision and waterfalls. The
storm’s clouds and obstructing rain acts as an outward manifestation of the king’s metaphorically
clouded sight. Gloucester too recognizes nature’s role in echoing the interior when he proclaims,
“When nature being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body” (Shakespeare 98).
While Oedipus accredits his self-blinding to the gods, Lear’s symbolic blindness appears to
derive from nature. Both entities are ephemeral and suggest a common theme of transcendence
in blindness.
Like Lear, Gloucester’s own eminent blinding is linguistically foreshadowed early on in
the play. Upon persuading Edmund to show him the letter, Gloucester states, “If it is indeed
1 Pathol. An opacity of the crystalline lens of the eye, or of the capsule of the lens, or of both, ‘producing more or
less impairment of sight, but never complete blindness’ ( New Sydenham Soc. Lexicon).[App. a fig. use of the sense
portcullis. In French, the physician A. Paré (c1550) has ‘cataracte ou coulisse’; and Cotgrave (1611) has coulisse ‘a
portcullis.. also a web in the eye’, the notion being that even when the eye is open, the cataract obstructs vision, as
the portcullis does a gateway. (But if originally in medieval Latin, it might arise from the sense ‘windowgrating’ fenestra clathrata, Du Cange.)] (1548), From the Oxford English Dictionary
14
nothing, I shall not need spectacles” (Shakespeare 308). This allusion to poor eyesight is much
subtler than the commands to Lear to “see better” and therefore reinforces the king’s blindness
that is physically represented in Gloucester. The Lord of Gloucester’s role as Lear’s proxy is
prominent when, before Cornwell stamps out his eye, he proclaims, “Because I would not see thy
cruel nails. Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister […] rash boarish fangs. The sea
with such a storm as his bare head in hell-black night endured” (Shakespeare 154). Gloucester’s
admission that he sent the king to Dover to prevent his daughters from plucking out his eyes
reveals that he consciously sacrificed his own eyes for the king. The word “pluck” gestures back
to Lear’s disparaging reflection, “Old fond eyes. Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck you out”
(Shakespeare 59). The corresponding use of “pluck” ties Gloucester’s blinding to Lear.
Moreover the description of “hell-black” foreshadows this sacrifice. “Storm” also links
Gloucester’s blinding to the king’s wandering through the elements, reemphasizing Lear’s
symbolic blinding in that scene. Yet, Gloucester’s vision loss is not solely on the king’s behalf,
but also as a punishment for his ignorance of Edmund’s betrayal. In “Bereaved Senses: Problems
of Definition in King Lear Critical Survey,” Cavanaugh notes this castigation when he posits,
“Just as Lear and Gloucester reject, disinherit, exile, so they become the rejected, the
disinherited, the exiled. The loss they inflict becomes the loss they endure.” (Cavanaugh 160).
Both Lear and Gloucester exile their children and tell others to “see better.” These words and
deeds rebound and blind them, manifesting outward their blindness to their children’s duplicity
and loyalty. For the Lord of Gloucester, this loss of sight is simultaneously, sacrificial for his
king and a punishment.
15
As in Oedipus Rex, Gloucester’s blinding imbues him with heightened sensory
perceptions and recognition in truth. Cavanaugh views Gloucester’s blinding as a loss in
perception: “As the constant punning on sight and seeing indicates, Gloucester is losing a
complete means of perception, which involves the deprivation of the way values are located in
the world.” (Cavanaugh 158). However, I contend that this loss rather imbues him with
heightened sensory perception and self awareness. Immediately following the removal of his
eyes, the lord of Gloucester learns of his son Edmund’s deception: “Oh, my follies! Then Edgar
was abused. Kind gods forgive me that” (Shakespeare 156). The immediacy between his loss of
sight and realization of Edgar’s innocence indicates that his recognition of the truth derives from
his blindness. The invocation of the gods further suggests a spiritual transcendence perpetuated
by Gloucester’s sightlessness. Furthermore, Gloucester’s injury magnifies his other senses’
perception. This heightened awareness is particularly evident when Edgar pretends to lead his
father up the Cliffs at Dover: “Methinks the ground is even […] Methinks thy voice is altered,
and thou speak’st in better phrase and matter than thou didst” (Shakespeare 203). Despite his
son’s efforts to convince him that he is climbing a cliff, Gloucester notes that the ground is flat
16
and, while he does not recognize his guide is his son, he does observe the change in Edgar’s tone
and speech as he drops his beggar persona. As Jonathan Goldberg elucidates in “Dover Cliff and
the Conditions of Representation: King Lear in Perspective”, “Vision depends upon blindness, it
rests upon a vanishing point. These lines, spoken for the benefit of a blind man, establish him as
the best audience” (Goldberg 544). In most productions of King Lear, there are no
representations of cliffs on the stage. Instead, the audience would depend on the characters to
describe the setting. This absence, in itself, explores the connection between perception and
truth as audience members would have been forced to believe Edgar’s insisting that they were
walking up a cliff or believe Gloucester’s protestations that the ground was flat, making the
audience as blind as him. Yet, as Goldberg asserts, “vision depends upon blindness.” Only once
he is blind, does Gloucester realize Edmund’s deception, become more sensorial aware, and
eventually recognize his guide to be his son, Edgar.
Conversely, Lear as he experiences only a metaphorical blindness, does not gain the same
capacity for recognizing truth as his blinded proxy. While Gloucester immediately learned of his
son’s deception, Lear does not immediately comprehend the veracity of Cordelia’s affection.
When Cordelia asks her father if he knows who she is, he replies, “You are a spirit, I know.
Where do you die? Where have I been? Where am I?”(Shakespeare 234). Lear’s lack of lucidity
is indicative of his aging, yet the dissimilarity between Gloucester and Lear’s knowledge
following their real and metaphorical loss of sight suggests a relationship between sightlessness
and awareness of truth. Lear eventually recognizes his daughter and her forgiveness, but this
realization is fleeting; he does not comprehend her death: “This feather stirs. She lives! If so, it
is a chance that does redeem all sorrows. […] Cordelia, Cordelia stay a little! Her voice was
ever soft, gentle, and low” (Shakespeare 281). Full of desperation, Lear believes that the feather
17
moves with her breath and thinks that he can still discern her soft voice. Gloucester’s complete
loss of vision garners him with a higher recognition of truth and he dies knowing of Edgar’s
loyalty, but as Lear manifested his metaphorical blindness through Gloucester, he presents a
lesser awareness and dies believing that Cordelia is alive.
In addition to the many allusions to natural elements in the storm scene, King Lear, like
Sophocles’ play, couples the loss of sight with allusions to the gods. The play’s diction
reemphasizes the connection between blindness and spirituality through its many allusions to
iconic, Greek gods. Both Gloucester and Lear frequently proclaim “by Apollo.” This reference
to the Greek god of prophecy by the two characters afflicted with some of vision loss suggests
divine origin for both blindings. However, Edgar most clearly elucidates the loss of vision as a
means of divine punishment and moral correction when he articulates, “The gods are just and of
our vices make instruments to plague us. The dark and vicious pace where thee he got. Cost him
his eyes” (Shakespeare 236). Edgar accredits his father’s blindness to the gods’ justice in
castigating him for his dismissal of his illegitimate son and ignorance of the other’s avidity.
King Lear presents a similar representation of the visually impaired as Oedipus Rex.
While Gloucester does not demonstrate the prophetic knowledge of Tiresias, he does show a
heightened sensory perception, like Oedipus; in his capacity to recognize his disguised son and
that the ground was flat and not a cliff. Likewise, both characters appear dependent relying on
sighted guides to navigate their surroundings. Both plays seem to place blind individuals in a
temporal space of higher awareness and remove them from the physical.
The loss of sight in King Lear acts as a punishment for Gloucester and Lear’s blindness
to the authenticity of their children’s loyalty. The latter character solely presents a metaphorical
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loss of vision through his proxy, Gloucester. Yet, both blinding, physical and symbolical,
correct the men’s ignorance to an extent. As he was truly blinded, Gloucester instantly realizes
that Edmund framed his brother. In contrast, as he was only metaphorically blind. Lear does not
garner the same realization as his proxy. While he does come to comprehend Cordelia’s love, he
dies still believing that she is alive. Coupled together, the plays Oedipus Rex and King Lear
portray blindness as a moral punishment, prompting a higher awareness and sensory perception.
These works also propagate a theme of wisdom tempered by utter dependency in the sightless.
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Pluck out an Eye and Cut off the Right Arm
While these two plays preiminate vision loss as a moral punishment, Bronte’s Jane Eyre
centralizes the corrective capacity of blindness. As one of the few characters in literature to
recover eyesight, Rochester presents moral redemption through vision loss. The novel also
magnifies the prophetic power, derived from the loss, observed in Oedipus Rex. Both Pikrel’s
“Jane Eyre and the Apocalypse of the body” and Holme’s Fictions of Afflictions explore the
moral cause of Rochester’s blindness. However, my analysis will not only explicate the
corrective role of Rochester’s vision loss, but also the redemption that it perpetuates. I will
sustain my claim by examining the novel’s diction, Rochester’s blinding, the couple’s telepathy,
and the restoration of Rochester’s sight. Additionally, this argument shall illuminate the literary
evolution in perspectives on the blind.
While King Lear opens with an allusion to blindness that foreshadows Gloucester’s
blinding and the King’s own metaphorical sightlessness, Jane Eyre fixates on Rochester’s eyes.
This emphasis on his eyes begins with Rochester’s initial appearance in Bronte’s novel: “He had
a dark face with stern features and a heavy brow. His eyes and gathered eyebrows looked ireful
and thwarted now” (Bronte 147). In describing his appearance, the most attention is given to
Rochester’s eyes. Creating a leitmotif, this attention to the master of Thorn field’s eyes is equally
prominent in Jane’s sketch of him, “Now for the eyes. I had left them to the last, because they
required the most careful working. I drew them large. I shaped them well […] Good, but not
quite the thing. […] They want more force and spirit, and I wrought the shades blacker” (Bronte
294). This magnified attention to Rochester’s eyes reveals their significance. The descriptions of
their “force” and “spirit” further connect them with his character, reinforcing their pending
blindness as a connected to virtue. Likewise, his eyes are repeatedly referred to as “dark” and
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“black.” While this illustration mainly details the character’s countenance, it also may be
foreshadowing their eventual increased darkening in his blindness.
However, the image of the lightning struck chestnut tree remains the most prominent
foreshadowing of Rochester’s blinding. Directly after he asks Jane to be his wife, Rochester
declares, “I know my maker sanctions what I do”(Bronte 322).Subsequently, lightening splits the
trunk of the chestnut tree. This scene parallels the Biblical story of Saul in which God castigates
Saul, a tax collector, for his avarice by blinding him with lightening. This Biblical allusion
foreshadows Rochester’s own vision loss as a punishment for proposing to Jane while he is still
married to Bertha Mason. The diction of this scene further suggests sightlessness:
But what had befallen the night?
The moon was not yet set, and we were all in shadow.
I could scarcely see my master’s face near as I was.
And what ailed the chestnut tree?
It writhed and groaned while wind roared in the laurel walk,
and came sweeping over us. (Bronte 165)
In an uncanny resemblance to King Lear, the storm appears to symbolize blindness; the darkened
night blinds the couple to one another, simulating sightlessness. Moreover, as the space of Jane
and Rochester’s engagement, the chestnut tree, which is cleaved in half by lightening, acts as a
divine warning against their marriage. The split trunk reveals the necessity of the couple’s
separation. Yet, the trunk, all though split, remains intact as Jane and Rochester eventually
reunite and marry. Further emphasizing the tree’s symbolic representation of blindness,
Rochester likens himself to the split chestnut tree at the novel’s conclusion: “I am no better than
the old lightening struck chestnut in Thornfield orchard” (Bronte 554). In his blinded state,
Rochester compares himself to the chestnut tree, further conveying its symbolic foreshadowing
of his blindness as a punishment for bigamy. This Biblical punishment for adultery articulates
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the role of blindness as divine retribution within the work.
Yet, Rochester ignores this symbolic warning of the lightening arbiter and still seeks to
wed Jane. As a result of this attempt at bigamy, the symbolic lightening transitions into a fire
which burns Rochester’s eye and his right hand. Pikrel posits that Rochester’s maiming
corresponds his perception of himself with his physical appearance:
What happens to him in the fire may be the very opposite of castration; it may be an
example of what Dr. Szasz calls "bringing the body up to date.”4 The events of his life
have led Mr. Rochester to believe that he is maimed, as his conversation with Jane Eyre
on the subject reveals, and the fire shows that he was right; he thought he might lack
limbs and features and it turns out he really does lack a hand and an eye: he has become
what he thought he was. (Pikrel 164)
While Rochester’s self-deprecating description of his countenance certainly parallels his later
injuries, I contend that this correspondence serves as foreshadowing rather than a merging of
perception with the physical. As no element of the novel’s plot appears without some degree of
foreshadowing, Rochester’s account of himself as “maimed”, like the lightening-struck chestnut
tree, warns of his pending impairment. Likewise, the proximity between his vision loss and offer
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to make Jane his mistress strongly suggests that these injuries are divine retributions. This
conviction that this loss of sight was a divine punishment is quite overt within the novel. In
learning of her master’s blindness, the innkeeper posits, “Some say it was a just judgment on him
for keeping his first marriage a secret and wanting to take another wife while he had one living”
(Bronte 535). This line directly links Rochester’s blinding to his attempt to make Jane his wife
while hiding his first wife. Likewise, plucking out an eye and cutting off the right hand is the
Biblical punishment for adultery further originating his vision loss in bigamy. As Kleege
succinctly elucidates, “Even a random survey of nineteenth and twentieth century fiction reveals
the same notion that links blindness to some sort of illicit sexual union to a tragic reversal of
fortune and to the complete loss of personal, sexual, and political power.” (Kleege 53) Rochester,
himself, recognizes his own lapse in morality and resultant need for divine justice. Following the
public announcement that he is already married,
“I meant, however, to be a bigamist, but fate has out maneuvered me or providence has
checked me […] I am little better than a devil at this moment and as my pastor there
would tell me, deserve no doubt the sternest judgments of God-even to the quenchless
fire and deathless worm” (Bronte 366)
Rochester realizes his sin and the reference to “fire” may foreshadow his crippling due to fire.
However, he still seeks to make Jane his mistress by secluding her away in a cottage. Despite the
lightening portence and discovery of his wife, and his realization of his sins, Rochester still
pursues adultery which propagates his blinding.
Bronte’s novel presents a magnified level of dependency in the blind. While Oedipus Rex
and King Lear portrayed a similar level of reliance in the blind characters’ need for mobility
assistance, Rochester demonstrates an infant-like helplessness. This paradigm shift in the blind's
lack of self-agency may stem from the period which Holmes describes as, “The focus is
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Victorian Britain, a time in which ‘afflicted’ and ‘defective’ bodies permeated not only the plots
of popular literature and drama, but also published debates about heredity, health, education,
work, welfare” (Holmes 4). The Victorian public was beginning to consider the disabled and
how that affected their ability to work and propagate. When he first meets Jane, Rochester
refuses her assistance after being injured while riding. This stubborn self-reliance presents a
marked contrast with his reliance on others after being disabled in the fire at Thornfield Manor.
Before announcing her arrival, Jane observes, “Then he paused as if he knew not which way to
turn. He opened his eyes, gazed blank and with a straining effort” (Bronte 534). Like Oedipus
and Gloucester, Rochester is unable to navigate through his surroundings, but his dependency
reaches far beyond mobility. In Fictions of Afflictions, Holmes describes the two illustrations of
blind, Victorian men: “The disabled man’s difference correspondingly is that he is either tied to
the domestic sphere or else roams the streets.” (Holmes 94). While Jane Eyre devotes more
space to describing life after losing his sight than in the two plays, it is evident that Rochester
belongs to the domestic space where he fulfills the role of a child as he is reliant on Jane to comb
his hair, feed him, and guide him. This castigation through the loss of sight presents an overt
juxtaposition between his previous wealth, arrogance, and physical strength which Kleege
recognizes when she elucidates, “Even a random survey of nineteenth and twentieth century
fiction reveals the same notion that links blindness to some sort of illicit sexual union to a tragic
reversal of fortune and to the complete loss of personal, sexual, and political power” (Kleege 53).
Throughout Victorian literature, sexual transgressions prompt a reversal of fate. For Rochester,
this takes the form of blindness, which reduces him to a childlike dependency and an almost
impoverished state as he retreats from society and is forced to abandon his manor.
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Yet, what is most troubling is the reflection of Victorian society’s view of the blind that
the work offers. The innkeeper, who recounts Rochester’s accident to Jane, acts as a
representation of the public’s convictions. When explaining Rochester’s disabled state, the
innkeeper conveys, “He is alive, but many think he had better be dead. […] He can’t leave
England. He is a fixture now. He is stone blind” (Bronte 535). This reflection asserts that
blindness is worse than death and ascribes those who are sightless with an immobile state. In
Freedom for the Blind: The Secret is Empowerment, James H. Omvig elucidates, “The blind, of
course, being a part of larger society, are conditioned by that society. They see themselves as
others see them. They have bought into the negative view of inferiority” (Omvig 27). As the
most immobile of the three blind characters, Rochester is confined by societal convictions that
view him as helpless and requiring seclusion.
However, like the portrayals in King Lear and Oedipus Rex, Jane Eyre deprives the blind
of mobility but imbues them with transcendent capabilities. As Beatty reveals in "Jane Eyre
Cubed: the Three Dimensions of the Novel, nothing occurs without foreshadowing within the
novel which burgeons with elements of the supernatural:
"From the certainty of Rochester's conversion, the supernatural nature of Jane's having
heard across a vast distance Rochester calling her when she asked for a sign, back [...] to
the twisting chestnut tree on the hitherto calm night of Rochester's proposal, through the
still ambiguous instances of fairies dropping advice on Jane's pillow” (Beatty 84).
Through its references to fairies, telepathic messages, and the lightening-struck chestnut,
Bronte's novel begins to suggest the heightened spirituality that Rochester experiences as a result
of his vision loss. The split chestnut tree is one such arbiter as it represents Jane and Rochester’s
separation and Bertha’s attempt to light a fire in her husband’s room foreshadows the fire that
kills her. Following this literary pattern, Rochester’s prophetic capacity is first eluded to when he
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masquerades as a gypsy. In his disguise, Rochester examines Jane’s face, stating, “What is in a
palm? Destiny is not written there. […] It is in the face: on the forehead, about the eyes, in the
eyes themselves” (Bronte 252). This scene, early on in the novel appears to connect destiny with
the eyes. Moreover, his apparent ability to discern Jane’s personality from her countenance
foreshadows his later telepathy with her. Consequently, losing his vision actualizes this capacity.
After Jane returns, Rochester recounts his experience of hearing her voice: “And it was last
Monday somewhere near midnight […] Jane! A voice- I cannot tell from the whence the voice
came, but I know whose voice it was-relied: I am coming. Wait for me’ and a moment after went
whispering on the wind” (Bronte 559). After expressing his remorse and supplicating to God to
let him die so that he may be rejoined with Jane in Heaven, Rochester hears her voice on the
wind. The proximity between this mystical occurrence and Rochester remorse and prayers
suggest the divine nature of his blinding. In accepting his punishment, he progresses towards a
spiritual purification and is rewarded with a telepathic message from Jane. As in the plays, the
blind are portrayed as incapable of interacting with the physical and instead are paired with the
ethereal. This unnatural interaction also marks the end of his punishment, and eventual recovery
of limited eyesight, as it is this exchange that prompts Jane to return to Thornfield Manor. As he
expresses remorse and restores the nuclear family, Rochester's punishment is lessened and he
recovers some vision. “He eventually recovered, “the sight of that one eye. He cannot now see
very distinctly. He cannot read or write much, but he can find his way without being led by the
Hand: the sky is no longer a blank to him-the earth no longer a void” (Bronte 563). Rochester's
regained sight reverts his Biblical punishment of adultery, reflecting his restoration of the
traditional family in the death of Bertha and his subsequent marriage to Jane. This transition
emphasizes that his blindness was a form of divine punishment, lifted slightly only by the
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correction of the transgression. Magnifying his utter dependency while fully blind, Rochester is
able to navigate his environment after regaining minimal sight. This new-found independence
reveals the conviction in the centrality of sight, in comparison to the other senses, in navigation.
It also enables Rochester to return to an adult state as he is now able to see his newborn son and
fulfill the role of father rather than dependant.
Through Rochester’s loss and recovery of sight, Bronte’s novel demonstrates the literary
trope of blindness as a form of punishment and moral correction. In consequence for his attempt
to marry Jane despite already being wed to Bertha Mason, Rochester receives the Biblical
punishment for adultery-losing his right eye and right hand. The nature of this injury asserts the
divine nature of this punishment. Like Oedipus and Gloucester, this handicap forces Rochester
into total dependence, yet while he is unable to navigate his surroundings, Rochester’s blindness
imbues him with a higher, spiritual and sensory capabilities. After praying to God, Rochester
experiences telepathic communication with Jane. The proximity between this extraordinary
occurrence, like the Biblical nature of his injuries, further suggests the divine nature of his vision
loss. However, it is not until after Bertha Mason’s death and the restoration of a traditional
family through his marriage to Jane, Rochester regains some vision. This chronology of events
leading up to his regained sight emphasizes the morally corrective role of blindness. Over the
time spanning between Jane Eyre and Sophocles’s and Shakespeare’s respective plays, greater
attention has been placed on the supernatural capabilities of the blind; while Oedipus and
Gloucester mainly recognized their own guilt and demonstrated a greater sensory awareness after
they lost their sight, Rochester experiences telepathic communication. This literary transition
suggests an increased awareness of the trope of the blind as located in the temporal and therefore
granted with higher knowledge.
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Conclusion
From the Biblical story of “Paul at Damascus” to Oedipus Rex, King Lear, and Jane
Eyre, blindness fulfills the role of a punishment aimed at moral correction. For Tiresias, Oedipus,
and Rochester this is a sexual transgression while for Lear and Gloucester it is for their political
ignorance. This creates an inversion in which blindness paradoxically improves sight or rather a
recognition of truth. Yet, this inversion of sight and sightlessness stretches beyond the eyes; it
forces the characters to recognize and reverse their transgressions. Like Paul, this realization of
their own culpability forces Oedipus, Lear, and Gloucester to wander the land blindly, fixated on
their failures. From this arises a form of liminality as Tiresias inhabits both sexes and Lear and
Oedipus simultaneously belong to two and no families. However, their vision loss locates each of
these literary figures in a liminal space between the physical and the temporal. Tiresias,
Oedipus, Lear, Gloucester, and Rochester are portrayed as utterly dependent as they are forced to
cling to another to navigate their surroundings. Conversely, their blindness imbues them with
greater perception and higher knowledge. For Shakespeare’s characters this garnered capacity is
less overt and mainly takes the form of Gloucester’s ability to recognize his disguised son’s
voice and doubt that he is climbing the cliffs at Dover. In contrast, Tiresias becomes a seer and
Rochester experiences telepathic communication with Jane. These extraordinary capabilities are
paired with increased spirituality as Tiresias is castigated by Zeus and Rochester’s messages with
Jane follows a series of prayers on his part, rooting both characters’ newfound powers in
divinity.
This literary trope of vision loss as a morally corrective and of the blind possessing
extraordinary potencies does not cease with Jane Eyre in the Victorian Era but perpetuates across
contemporary works. Much like the characters of Gloucester, recent works demarcate the facets
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of blindness: castigation, moral purification, and supernatural capacities in their characters. For
instance, Flicker, a blind teenage girl in Scott Westerfeld’s Zeroes (2015) is able to see through
others’ eyes and acts as an urban superhero. Likewise Sherry Moore, a blind investigator in
George Shuman’s 18 Seconds (2006), can glimpse the last eighteen seconds of the deceased’s
memory. Both of these characters demonstrate a magnified supernatural power than that
experienced by Rochester. However, unlike the master of Thornfield Hall, these women are
relatively independent and can navigate their surroundings with the aid of a cane and lead a
normal, daily life. Moreover, rather than being burdensome to society in their complete reliance
on others, Flicker and Sherry aid their communities by investigating and preventing crime. This
shift in dependence from Bronte’s character to those of Westerfeld and Shuman may be due to
advances in assistive technology or may reflect a transition in society’s perception of the
capabilities of the blind community. While these books present a positive view of the blind, the
loss of vision as a punishment and morally educating still linger in more recent works. This is
only a survey of contemporary books and does not signify that all works reflect these tropes of
blindness, but they are present in the majority of works. However, in examining current
portrayals of the blind, the majority of the characters are women, which suggests a gendering of
blindness. Kleege examines the gender distinctions in illustrations of the blind in Sight Unseen.
Yet, it may be intriguing to examine the evolution of blind characterization between the sexes.
While the literary pattern of blindness as a moral correction and the blind as capable of
extraordinary abilities endures throughout literature, this preservation of this trope only prompts
additional speculations. The overarching cause behind this presentation of those with low vision
is one such question; why pair the blind with divinity and imbue them with supernatural
potencies? Why employ vision loss as a punishment for a moral transgression? I posit that this
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shaping of blindness may arise from a need to justify an otherwise inexplicable occurrence and
as a means of alleviate pity for those who must try to make their way in the world with this
disability. Yet, the evolution of sightless characters and the parallels between literary and
societal perceptions of the blind remain to be seen.
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Works Cited
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Cavanagh, Dermot. “Bereaved Sense: Problems of Definition in King Lear”, Critical Survey.
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Cavell, Stanley. Disowning Knowledge in Six Plays of Shakespeare. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1987.Print.
DeWoskin, Rachel. Blind. New York: Penguin Group USA, 2014, Audio.
Dodds, E, R. “On Misunderstanding the Oedipus Rex”, Greece and Rome. Vol. 13, No. 1. (April
1966): pp. 37-49, JSTOR. Electronic.
Goux, Jean, Joseph. Oedipus Philosopher. California: Stanford University Press, 1993. Print.
Holmes, Martha, Stoddard. Fictions of Affliction. Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2004.
Audio.
Kleege, Georgina. Sight Unseen. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1999. Audio.
Langford, Thomas, A. “Prophetic Image and the Unity of Jane Eyre”, Studies in the Novel. Vol.
6, No. 2 (Summer 1974): pp. 228-235, JSTOR. Electronic.
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Omvig, James, H. Freedom for the Blind: The Secret is Empowerment. Region VI Rehabilitation
Continuing Education Program. Audio.
Pikrel, Paul. “Jane Eyre: Apocalypse of the Body”, ELH. Vol. 53, No. 1(Spring 1986): pp. 165182, JSTOR. Electronic.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. New York: Bantam Classics, 2004. Audio.
Sophocles. Oedipus Rex. New York: Dover Publications, 1991. Audio.
Versenyi, Laszio. “Oedipus the King: A Tragedy of Self-Knowledge”, Arion. Vol. 1, No. 3.
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