Symbolizing Sight: Knowledge vs Ignorance in Oedipus the King Oedipus, the character of focus within Sophocles’ play Oedipus the King, is subject to the greatest of ironies due to the play’s motif of sight: through metaphorical sightlessness, which is a case of ignorance, he condemns himself and uses literal blindness as his own punishment. Having been characterized within the literary work as possessing both knowledge and ignorance of his upbringing, metaphorical and literal elements of sight are constantly used to shed light on Oedipus’s experiences throughout the duration of the play. Mostly metaphorical in its usage within the literary work, the characters regularly utilize the terms of “sight” and “blindness” in order to address levels of knowledge or lack thereof as they gradually unravel the story’s underlying truth. The character of Oedipus is a man considered to have great insight and intelligence due to his success in protecting the city of Thebes from the threat of the sphinx by solving its riddle. This makes the situation even more ironic when the audience learns that Oedipus has been ignorant of the true reasons for his placement as king.
By feigning madness, Hamlet is responsible for the majority of the action throughout the play. Here, Hamlet is appearing insane to everyone in the play but as readers, we know that in reality, he is not. Hamlet tells Horatio multiple times that he is simply acting as he says, “I am but mad north-north-west; when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.” By acting insane, Hamlet is able to essentially manipulate everyone and do what he needs to be done. The line between appearance and reality is drawn early on as we learn within the first act that King Claudius isn’t as virtuous as he claims to be. While the people in the play believe the veil of lies that the king has spread, the audience knows that in reality, Claudius was the one to kill Old Hamlet.
The Fool is one of the most alluring characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear. He is a choric commentator whose lines reveal thematic motifs within the play, as well as a character that strategically uses humorous language as comic relief to Lear, but does not diminish the intensity of Lear’s misery. As he alleviates the intensity through humor, he equivocates because he says metaphors that speak the truth like the three witches in Macbeth, but the opposite. The Fool’s role is essential because he is aligned with Cordelia. Like Cordelia, the Fool is honest, but his comical language masks his honesty.
This is also shown with Polonius’s un-trust worthiness for Hamlet. As to with Laertes who feels the exact same way as his father. Paolo Feliciano Mr. McCarthy A.P. Lit Examination Act 2 Open Ended Questions 1. After the slow transition from Hamlet’s mournful state, to his ever growing state of madness, does his madness itself become his primary mode of communication with the other characters?
Consecutive misconceptions cause a fallacious interpretation of reality, broadcasted by the power of words, Hamlet’s greatest strength and weakness, which cause unpleasant tribulations to each character in the play. While Hamlet possessed an ear (and mind) that had the ability to filter fabrications, other characters appeared to be less fortunate in determining what seems to be and what is. One of the most interesting things in Hamlet is that every figure is predestined. The first individual we happen upon that is the first to perish, is King Hamlet, who was envenomed via his ear by his brother, Claudius. The ghost, having Claudius’s erosive and unethical ways in mind, vocalizes how these qualities will be undesirably executed in Denmark.
It provides the story with a point to change character smoothly to the audience and add dimension to the character creating very static characters. In the first soliloquy in Hamlet during Act two, scene two, Hamlet discusses the speech the player has just performed for him, and how angry he is that this player who was able to feel such great emotion for someone who meant nothing to him, when Hamlet couldn’t properly express his emotion and he had something terrible happen to him. This hatches the plan of the play in Hamlet’s mind and he finds out that he will be able to see if Claudius is guilty or not when he watches it. When he questions his character stating “But I am pigeon-liver’d and lack gall”(2.2.583) he admits his cowardly behavior and that if he had courage he would have “fatted all the region kites,”(2.2.585). By the end of the soliloquy he comes up with a plan, to make sure that Claudius definitely killed late Hamlet, and the Ghost is not a damned spirit here to taunt him.
In Shakespeare’s play, ‘King Lear’, we are shown an array of characters that are multi-dimensional and extremely complex. Shakespeare has the ability to reveal a human character with an exceptional use of language. The three characters that I believe have large roles and functions within the play are, understandably, King Lear himself, The Fool, and Kent. The Fool acts as Lear's conscience and trusted guide, yet he is also a critic of Lear, a truth teller. In effect this makes a true friend, however some believe it was the Fool's constant remarks that drove Lear to madness.
Polonius’ instructions to Reynaldo are so comically complex and so circuitously related that he himself loses track of them at one point. And his attempt to relate his great discovery of Hamlet’s broken heart to Claudius and Gertrude in the second scene does not go any better. “Brevity is the soul of wit,” he says (another instance of Polonius getting one of Shakespeare’s most famous and most often decontextualized lines); and he then proceeds to be anything but brief, anything but witty. Rather, he is dull, pedantic, self-important, pompous, flowery – and, more to the point, dead wrong. As in Act One, Polonius obviously fancies himself a great political mind.
This underlines the thin wall between pretending in real life and acting in a play. When Claudius asks Hamlet if the play has any offense in it Hamlet answers: “No, no, they do but jest, poison in jest.”(lines 256-257) He says that it is just pretending and that they are just actors in a play. During the whole plot of Hamlet, characters use lies, stage situations and manipulate each other to find out truths. They are all acting. In this passage, language is also used to play.
Hamlet’s soliloquies unfold the internal dilemma and mental obsession of the chief speaker. They lend an insight into Hamlet’s contemplative nature and the problem of procrastination. Most of all, they mark the movement from his inability to overcome his scholarly nature to his final resolution to become an avenger. The audience comfortably gets sundry approach to the psyche and mindset of Hamlet. Hamlet’s first soliloquy gives the first true insight into Hamlet’s inner turmoil.