 |
|
The tragic hero must be (metaphorically)
blinded (i.e. removed of orthodox sight and forced to
behold - or granted the vision of - something new, unique,
terrifying).
This moment of blindness - either into truth or error
- is the catalyst of the hero's tragedy. |
|
|
| MACBETH |
So foule and faire a day I haue not seene.
|
|
Macbeth I.3 |
|
|
| GLOSTER |
Lets see, come if it bee nothing I shall
not neede spectacles. |
|
King Lear I.2 |
|
|
| KENT |
See better Lear and let me still remaine,
The true blanke of thine eye.
|
|
King Lear I.3 |
|
|
| GLOSTER |
I haue no way, and therefore want no eyes,
I stumbled when I saw,
|
|
King Lear IV.! |
|
|
| OFELIA |
Now see that noble and most sovereign
reason,
Like sweet bells jangled, out of tune and harsh;
That unmatch’d form and feature of blown youth
Blasted with ecstasy: O, woe is me,
To have seen what I have seen, see what I see.
|
|
Hamlet III.1 |
|
|
IAGO
OTHELLO |
...
such a Handkerchiefe
(I am sure it was your wiues) did I to day
See Cassio wipe his Beard with.
Now do I see 'tis true.
|
|
Othello III.3 |
|
|
| Then he must suffer the agony
of what he knows/believes and must keep it secret because
no one else would understand - it is torture to think
of it but think of it he must (Lear in the thunderstorm
"the tempest in my mind"; Othello's epileptic
fit; Macbeth "O full of scorpions is my mind",
"the torture of the mind"; Hamlet "my imaginations
are as foul/As Vulcan’s stithy"). |
|
| HAMLET |
Excitements of my reason and my blood. |
|
Hamlet IV.4 |
|
|
| MACBETH |
Better
be with the dead...
Then on the torture of the Minde to lye
In restlesse extasie.
O, full of Scorpions is my Minde...
|
|
Macbeth III.2 |
|
|
| OTHELLO |
Thou hast set me on the Racke...
What sense had I, in her stolne houres of Lust?
I saw't not, thought it not: it harm'd not me:
|
|
Othello III.1 |
|
|
| HAMLET |
It is a damned ghost that we have seen,
And my imaginations are as foul
As Vulcan’s stithy. |
|
Hamlet III.2 |
|
|
| LEAR |
This
tempest in my mind
Doth from my sences take all feeling else.
|
|
King Lear III.4 |
|
|
| Then the hero must be killed
for his vision. Perhaps even granted the true vision before
he dies but never articulates. Lear "Look there,
look there"; Oedipus at Kolonos. But his new vision
has created his own executioner. Hamlet creates Laertes,
Macbeth creates Macduff, Richard II creates Bullingbrooke.
Or they must end themselves because they can't endure
the vision anymore.
Coleridge says: "if you want to see real suffering
go to a hospital."
What transcends the torture and suffering of the tragic
hero is the consciousness inside it which rather than
just screaming in pain, is able to articulate and redeem
suffering, and thus is born the Shakespearean sililoquoy.
When Ofelia does not suffer is happy; but when she
suffers she sings. Without the suffering there could
be no song. She is blinded and tortured for us to enjoy
her song. Shakespeare does this.
|
|
| LEAR |
Do you see this? Looke on her. Looke her
lips,
Looke there, looke there.
|
|
King Lear V.3 |
|
|
