My one month old kitten has one eye closed. Would soap in the eye cause this, and if so, what should i do?

Is there a puss-like substance in his eye?
If so, yes rinse it out thoroughly and often; that kind of thing should resolve itself if you do. Other than that, take him to a vet if his condition becomes really worrisome.

Rinse his eye out with water. Gently look to see if he may have gotten something else in his eye. Animals are great about putting there faces where it doesn’t belong. He may simply just have a sty in his eye. When my puppy was small he had some inverted lashes that would irratate his eye. They were easy to remove with tweezers but a cat may prove to be more difficult. I put visine eye drops in his eyes when they were irratated and that always seemed to help.

Poor little baby. I hope his eye gets better. :(

You could have caused irritation from the soap. If you have some eye irrigation solution (saline), you can try flushing the eye gently. However, if it does not resolve fairly quickly, plan to get him into your vet. It’s possible that he has a corneal ulcer, which is incredibly painful. Not to be an alarmist, but you should be aware that if untreated, corneal ulcers can progress to the point that the orb ruptures (corneal prolapse), which may result in the loss of an eye.

I put some visine in his completely closed eye, and now it is half open…...that’s a good sign! He seems lethargic though.

Clean off his fur with some cool water just incase there is some soap residue. Did you look in his eye to see if its possible he just has dust or a hair trapped on the eye. If he does and you remove it gently. (gently rub the eye till it moves to the corner of the eye but only if its a hair) If its a grain of some sort you may want a doctor to remove it. You don’t want it to scratch his eye. If you have some sort of saringe fill it with cool, not cold water and flush his eye until it rinses it out. Then visine it again to help with the irritation the water will cause.

Again, your best bet is a trip to the vet. Ocular discharge is a common sign of an upper respiratory infection. A kitten unkempt enough to have fleas may also have intestinal parasites.