In Shakespeare's novel King Lear, King Lear, on whom the story is based, undergoes polar character changes. Towards the beginning of the play, when he disowns Cordelia, he insists that she is ungrateful and worthless, attacking her role as a daughter as well as her untraditional honesty. The same "blindness"--or metaphoric inability to truly see the situation as it is--that leads him to banish Cordelia blocks him from seeing the dishonesty of his two other deceiving daughters. This blindness, more fatal with rage, and inability to self-actualize what is happening, comes at a great cost to the order of his land and its leaders. He never realizes the mistake he made until the stormy night he feels the wrath of Goneril and Regan's hostile betrayal, both in a familial and political sense. The fact that Cornwall and Goneril put his servant in stocks and subsequently refuse to offer the old man and his knights a place to stay, drives him into madness.
At that point in the story, Lear's rage overtakes him and his words and actions contradict those he demonstrated when he disowned Cordelia. His cognitive dissonance, that is to say the divide within him due to the opposing nature of his behavior, is what challenges his mind to the near point of insanity. This inner conflict is heightened when he realizes that even though he possesses a massive amount of anger at his two daughters, the limit of his power prevents him from challenging them on a high level, and earning anything from his frustration. His anger is "empty" and this changes the focus of his rage from an external level to an internal level, which plants within him the drive to come to terms with himself, although that is not relatively near. He eventually arrives at a deeper understanding of his mistakes, and acknowledgment of his "blindness", from his tragic experience. A higher level of respect is gained for Cordelia at this point in the story, as Lear realizes the value of Cordelia's humbleness, something she was naturally born with, enriched by...as opposed to what Lear could find only through the worst of betraying and tragic events.
I find this almost polar character change within Lear to be very representative of that which occurs within Thomas Gradgrind, one of the main characters in Dickens' Hard Times. He is the founder of the education system in his small industrial town, and insists that the students solely use fact and reason to achieve understanding. His children, Louisa and Tom, are raised strictly through fact and reason and are prohibited from "fancy." This takes a toll on the children, as they grow up with social and in some cases mental problems; it is difficult for them to easily assimilate into society. Gradgrind, however, does not notice the negative effects of his fact-based teaching until his daughter comes to him in tears, because she had to marry a man she didn't love because of her father, and because she found it so difficult to communicate with others and be "normal" because of her upbringing. At this point in the story, Gradgrind actually questions his teaching philosophy--the same which he created the school system with, regulated it by, and lived life through.
In both King Lear and Hard Times, the main characters were in some way "blind" and ignorant to the flaws in their thoughts and actions. Part of the reason was that until something happened "close to home", they were never forced nor cared to criticize their ways. It also took a severing of emotional connection with one of their family members, and Lear and Gradgrind realizing that they were emotionally devastated, for them to change. In a sense, they were both very powerful, influential people--a king and the founder of an education system in an industrial town--but when they are faced with their very own weaknesses, it is at first difficult for them to accept the truth. It can be said that both had "cognitive dissonance", between their old ways and in some way when those old ways were successful, and between the new philosophies they had to adopt, and the absence of experience with those philosophies. In spite of that, when they did demolish the wall of ignorance blocking their view of reality, both became happier, stronger, and significantly wiser people.
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