The Dover Cliff scene of King Lear has spent at least several decades under the puzzled scrutiny of scholars. In the midst of a tragedy, why does Shakespeare insert such a supposedly comical scene, in which a blind man is tricked into thinking he’s jumped off a cliff? With the rise of disability studies, though, this feeling of head-scratching has developed into discomfort. Gloucester’s identity as a blind man becomes important in that scene, and readers of King Lear are faced with difficult interpretive questions: what are we supposed to make of comedy at the expense of a blind man? Does Gloucester become yet another blind stereotype as he falls on level ground, tricked by a sighted man who would of course know better? In answer to these questions, I propose a radical rereading of the Dover Cliff scene, one which might present King Lear to blind studies with fewer interpretive complications: this scene need not be read as comical. Gloucester and the people around him show enough acceptance of his blindness as a lifestyle, and Gloucester shows enough awareness of Edgar’s trickery as he describes the imaginary cliffs, that this scene can be read as Gloucester fooling his sighted helper, cooperating in the charade that gives him new hope for his life ahead. With this interpretation, the discomfiting comedy falls away, as does Gloucester’s blindness as symbolic shorthand for sin or imperceptiveness.
Previous references to King Lear in the context of blind studies have been especially dismissive of the Dover Cliff scene. Kenneth Jernigan, for instance, in his clarion call for more positive representations of the blind in literature, scoffs at Shakespeare’s take on blindness in King Lear, saying, “He makes the blinded Gloucester in ‘King Lear’ so thoroughly confused and helpless that he can be persuaded of anything and deceived by any trick.” And Jernigan has right to be concerned about this interpretation. American culture generally represents blindness as a completely debilitating event even when it is mostly social stigma that makes life challenging for the blind in an age of technology (see Pierce). Blogger Bridgit Kuenning-Pollpeter summarizes popular treatment of blindness through her experience with a Law and Order episode in which a newly blinded man bemoans his life, in which he cannot safely move around the house or go to a restaurant by himself. And the entire tradition of literature has not done much better about offering blind role models for readers. Oedipus, the long-lasting trope of blindness as punishment for sin, still seems to hold his symbolic power after thousands of years,and professor Georgina Kleege points out how harmful the Oedipus trope can be for the blind because the “whole point” of Oedipus is that he can’t “[get] used to the idea of his lost sight”; otherwise, his blindness as punishment would lose its effect (74). So while Shakespeare’s King Lear might get roped in to the literary tradition of making the blind merely helpless, instructive symbols, the play is easily rehabilitated. If Gloucester is not read as fooled during the Dover Cliffs scene, Shakespeare’s great tragedy could lead the way for depicting the life after blindness in classic literature that scholars like Kleege search for.
The basic way to read against the comedy at the expense of Gloucester in the Dover Cliff scene is, perhaps unsurprisingly, to focus more on how Gloucester operates in the scene. While Edgar is leading Gloucester along and falsely describing their surroundings, Gloucester periodically protests, almost impatiently, to Edgar’s words: “Methinks the ground is even” (IV.vi.3), he insists, and “Methinks you’re better spoken” (line 14). Tellingly, the scene starts not with an assertion from Edgar but from a perhaps suspicious question from Gloucester: “When shall I come to th’ top of that same hill?” (line 1). Though this opening line would seem to frame the scene almost from Gloucester’s perspective, most scholars focus so much on Edgar’s ekphrasis in his imaginary creation of cliffs that they wind up automatically dismissing Gloucester’s lines to a merely functional role. Jonathan Goldberg, for instance, implies that Gloucester’s protests to Edgars descriptions are only present to definitively establish for the audience the scene’s setting—which is not, in fact, at the Cliffs of Dover. Says Goldberg, “Still, an audience would also know that we were to witness a scene at Dover Cliff, Shakespeare’s stage would have no way of representating the event save in the language available to those onstage who could testify to such an arrival; in this scene, only Edgar could report the evidence of sight” (539). This last line of Goldberg’s analysis is particularly confusing. Though he insists that Edgar is the only reliable reporter of the scene, it should be clear to the reader or viewer that it is Gloucester, in fact, who is providing the correct topography. And if Gloucester is capable of discerning his surroundings despite Edgar’s words to the contrary, it seems inaccurate to give Edgar the privileged position as the only one who could report “the evidence of sight.” Edgar does not report what can be seen, but Gloucester does. Though Goldberg’s point is received that Gloucester does not have the sight that the audience depends so much on in their own lives, Gloucester’s accurate knowledge of the situation undercuts his argument and shows its bias for the sighted at the expense of the blind. Gloucester does not need sight to perceive the same evidences that sight would deliver to him, and yet Edgar is still interpreted as the necessary viewpoint character for the audience.
Even the other characters in Lear do not treat Gloucester as a helpless blind stereotype. Immediately after Gloucester is blinded for instance, the servants around him start trying to treat him. As soon as Cornwall and Regan leave the room of the torture, one of the servants says, “Go thou. I'll fetch some flax and whites of eggs / To apply to his bleeding face” (III.vii.128–29). My Folger edition of Shakespeare glosses this line with this explanation: “prescribed (in the Renaissance) for wounded eyes” (166). This note provides a hint that Gloucester’s life is not to be abandoned as Oedipus’s was. Even after witnessing Gloucester be violently blinded, the servants are willing to help him heal; and healing Gloucester implies at least some hope for his future. Also, the text and characters of Lear make clear that sight is not the only way of interacting with the world and thus don’t allow Gloucester to fall into abject hopelessness in his new condition. Says scholar Robert Pierce,
Sight as a vehicle of understanding is juxtaposed with the other senses in a way that jumbles the traditional hierarchy that places sight at the top. Edgar, of course, recognizes the old king by sight, and Gloucester is fairly quick to recognize his voice by hearing, for all the bizarre circumstances. Gloucester tries to reestablish their old relationship by touch, kissing Lear’s hand. His gesture embodies the loyalty that has cost him so much, while reestablishing connection through another sense that is still left to him. (Pierce)
Pierce is right to point out the emphasis on the other senses. Even while Lear is talking to Gloucester, he tells him with dismay, “A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears” (4.vi.165). Though this exchange could be read as stereotypical compensatory powers for the blind, it seems instead to question the idea that knowledge can only be gained by sight, similar to the way that the Cliffs of Dover scene has the blind Gloucester providing the real scene-setting information for the audience.
And even Gloucester himself has some hope that he’ll adapt to his blindness. Despite the violation and violence he has suffered, Gloucester is not immediately suicidal like our literary sensibilities tell us he might be. In the first appearance of Gloucester onstage after his blinding, he says, “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” (IV.i.22–25). This last couplet does not sound like a man who has given up on his life. Instead, it seems to indicate that Gloucester has accepted that he will not get his sight back: notice that he says that perceiving Edgar with his touch would be just as good as being able to see the whole world with his eyes. To compound upon this idea, Gloucester says to Lear, who has just discovered his blindness, “I see it [the world] feelingly” (IV.vi.164). This line gains more resonance in light of what Gloucester said earlier: “Heavens, deal so still: / Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man, / That slaves your ordinance, that will not see / Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly” (IV.i.76-79). He attributes some measure of knowledge of the world to tactile (even if emotionally tactile) instead of visual senses. Therefore, the double meaning of “I see it feelingly” comes to the surface. Gloucester has come to terms with this new way of interacting with the world, and he now finds his emotions to be more in tune with the situation of the world around him.
Of course, this reading gets complicated when we realize that Gloucester did, in fact, touch Edgar but still wanted to commit suicide. Didn’t he say that if he could touch his loyal child again, he would feel restored in some way? Why, then, is one of the first things he asks Mad Tom to be led to a place where he can commit suicide? This conundrum is to some degree steeped in the blind stereotypes prevalent throughout literary history, but we should read it in a puzzled way. Even if it shows that Shakespeare was subject to the same apprehensions about blindness as the rest of the literary canon, it just doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the scene, which can be read so poignantly. It is in these moments of confusion that the activist reader can step in with a new interpretation of the text, one which not only puts these discrepancies in order but also provides a healthy blind role model in classic literature. In this moment of uncertainty, we have the option of reading Gloucester as purposeful--perhaps, in fact, since he does see the world feelingly, he is able to see Mad Tom as his son, and perhaps he sets up the setting of Dover Cliffs as a way to have this scene of cleansing renewal with his son, who would not dare let his father die when it is in his power to help. Perhaps by letting Edgar think he did have power of the situation because of his sight, Gloucester in fact took some control of the reins in reestablishing the bonds between father and son after his tragic violation.
Dover as Renewal
Obviously, this is going to be the biggest section of the paper, combined with the next paragraph.
Dover as Liminal Space
Near end: why Dover? More importantly, why not Dover? Edgar does not actually lead Gloucester there. Dover might have some important implications as a liminal space, the stark boundary between England and the rest of the world. Gloucester might have wanted to separate himself from his previous identity as an English noble by plummeting over this boundary, but Edgar lets him nowhere near it. Edgar helps Gloucester retain his identity even in the face of his blindness.
Conclusion: Changing Gloucester, Changing Ourselves
Quote from Pierce: "Of course, the stereotypes are not utter falsehood. It is indeed a terrible thing to be blinded, and despairing helplessness is a natural response to the experience, though not an inevitably permanent one." (Pierce)
Toward a new method of reading the blind in literature? There might be some points here that are salvageable--more than that--even if not ideal.
Works Cited
Goldberg, Jonathan. “Dover Cliff and the Conditions of Representation: King Lear 4:6 in Perspective.” Poetics Today 5.3 (1984): 537–47.Kuenning-Pollpeter, Bridgit. “How Blindness Is Often Depicted.” Live Well Nebraska. Live Well Nebraska, 12 January 2012. Web. 21 March 2013.
Jernigan, Kenneth. “Is Literature against Us?” Address delivered at the annual banquet of the National Federation of the Blind, Chicago, 3 July 1974.
Pierce, Barbara. “No Such Thing as Blind Culture.” Braille Monitor November 2008. Web. 21 March 2013.
Pierce, Robert B. “‘I Stumbled When I Saw’: Interpreting Gloucester’s Blindness in King Lear.” Philosophy and Literature 36.1 (2012): 153-65. Web.
Nyssa, I thought this was really engaging. You hooked me in the opening sentences and kept me going. I was confused at first why you would say that Gloucester actually was not fooled by Edgar, but it made sense when you quoted his observations. As for Gloucester's desire to end his life, I think it could be read as a token of despair. He knows that the French army is there, and so chances are he believed maybe on the way to Dover if he could somehow regain his hope and not kill himself before entering the French camp then he would still be able to gain a second chance at life. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to the finished product!
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