Category Archives: King Lear

The Unnatural Destruction of Man

Character types, King Lear, Tragic hero, ,

Throughout King Lear, we see a King undergo a deconstruction and degradation of himself. Initially owning a title, palace, family, and overall status, the man is stripped of all his possessions down to the very clothes on his back. This return back to his natural form is seen as a downfall, yet Shakespeare emphasizes the power of such a reducec state when Lear speaks to Gloucester : “No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light; yet you see how this world goes” (4.6.148-50). Lear is commenting on Gloucester’s unforeseen (no pun intended) disfiguration but he’s also self-reflecting.

No physical harm has come to Lear as of yet, only the self-inflicted madness he experiences. However, he does go through a reverse evolution of sorts and becomes one with the natural world. Fighting off tempests and harsh forces of nature, the man survives and comes out psychologically more intact than when he came in. Some would disagree with me on that part but what I mean by more intact is that he experiences clarity of mind, even if for an instance.  Only after he had reduced himself to a piece of nature did his vision improve.

It says a lot on the destructive power of man– or woman in this case– that the dangerous natural world couldn’t succeed in destroying Lear – but they could. Cordelia compares Lear to the sea:  “As mad as the vex’d sea; singing aloud; / Crown’d with rank femiter and furrow-weeds” (4.4.2-3). The sea is one of the most destructive forces in the world, with its vast depths and murderous temper tantrums. This synonymous reference could just be Cordelia’s way of explaining Lear’s fluctuating madness, with waves of tyrant tides. However, I do believe that this is also a physical comparison to a natural element that Lear has embodied and survived. He has outlived the tempestuous currents that could drag a man to the depths, and come to the surface where he could see the outline of his way home to shore. But that land is never reached and it is not because of natural occurrences but rather man-made destruction.

This death by man notion is seen as stronger than nature. That nature, despite its unstable dangerous surroundings, is safer and contains clarity of mind more than any man-made “harbor.”

Good King? Mad Daughters

Character types, King Lear, Tragedy, Tragic hero

I put the question mark in the title because it’s very questionable that King Lear was a good king. I certainly would not brand him a wicked character, though he did make a major miscalculation in punishing Cordelia. This is especially true considering that she was the only one of his daughters who did not want him completely out of the way. This calls into judgment if King Lear was a good king meaning a king who is good at his job, opposed to a king who is morally good or not. If we’re discussing wickedness in this play, Goneril, Regan, and Edmund would definitely take precedence over Lear.

And there is no doubt that King Lear’s starting to lose it a bit in his old age. His already volatile sanity is further provoked by the wickedness of two of his daughters. But it might help to question the sanity of both Goneril and Regan. One would have to at least be a little bit mad to treat your aging father who has already given his land to you as terribly as both of them do. Their borderline and sociopathic behavior in plotting, planning, lying to others, lying to each other, and murderous actions do not seem sane in a play that is very vocal about questioning insanity. Cordelia, however, contrasts from her two sisters by being the most honest and self-aware character. She instead suffers from the mistake of not knowing when it is a good time to speak against her father, even if it is mistaken to mean something else by him. That mistake, as noble and honest as it is, proves to be the first instance known to the reader where Lear‘s sanity is called into question. It ends up being a slippery slope of madness that cannot be stopped before major tragic repercussions.

Group 6 Reflection

Death and dying, King Lear, Stage techniques, The Fool, The role of the imagination, Tragedy

Some of the most important events to happen in Shakespeare’s play King Lear happen off-stage. This is especially important since most of what our group talked about was what happened off-stage. The scene is set with Edgar confronting his bastard brother Edmund. All of the family conflicts within the Gloucester family are pumping and ready to explode as the two meet. Edmund doesn’t really know that it is Edgar whom he is fighting but soon Edgar explains who he is and the way in which his father Earl of Gloucester died.  At this point the audience knows the major event to happen off-stage and that’s the Earl of Gloucester’s dying after meeting Edgar. Goneril and Reagan die off-stage during the confrontation between the two brothers. Edmund reveals that he has set in motion a series of events to kill Cordelia.

The off-stage significance is important because so many things are happening off-stage and never before in any of the Shakespeare plays that we have read as a class has this happened. The only equivalent in terms of death is probably Hamlet, but in Hamlet  multiple characters die on-stage. The amount of characters that died are similar, but Hamlet had the chaos of everyone dying right there  for the audience to make sense of. I think his reasoning for taking the deaths of the characters of King Lear off-stage was to highlight the moment at which Lear holds Cordelia in his arms and is powerless because he couldn’t reach her in time to save her life. Maybe Shakespeare wanted to highlight how vulnerable his characters were, that they had no control over what was going on. In that sense I think Lear is even more tragic than Hamlet.

While discussing the part, our group missed some of the significance that the scene set up. Only with close reading and re-examination did we discover that there was so much going on in this scene off-stage and on-stage. During our presentation, I think our highlight of the things that happened off-stage was so important to the mood of the play. Coming into the group, I didn’t realize how much of an impact this scene had on the play. The Gloucester family is so important to the play as the other story to follow beside Lear’s story.

After working with the group our favorite part, was the acting scene. Even though we didn’t rehearse it much, the acting came alive, and everyone was just having fun with it. It became more than a group project, and that was meaningful. We all made fun of Albany’s whining and how he was an honorable man but never acted upon it. I played Albany so it was especially fun to overact the scene and portray Albany as this wimpy guy. I think it was especially fun for us to just be able to act out our parts without any pressure and let our natural ability take over. The fight between Edgar and Edmund played by Douglas and Elina respectively was funny even though that wasn’t the direction the play took it. I think our performance was a lot lighter and comical compared to the actual portrayal. Overall I think each of our group members enjoyed it and we would be happy to do something similar as a group.

 

Cordelia the Fool

Doubling, King Lear, The Fool

Scholars have long debated over whether or not the same male actor was meant to play both the roles of Cordelia and the Fool in King Lear. Regardless of Shakespeare’s intention, there are similarities between the two characters.

Like the “all-licensed” Fool, Cordelia insisted on being true to herself by maintaining a high level of honesty. She can be considered a brave female character who dared to deviate from the norms of society, one of which was to tell her father the king what he wanted to hear. Despite knowing that “nothing can come of nothing,” Cordelia refused to affectedly flatter her father like her two elder sisters did. She and the Fool both possessed a nimble mind that other characters lacked. Influenced by the teaching “The heart of fooles is in the mouth: but the mouth of the wise is in their heart” from The Book Ecclesiasticus, Shakespeare had Cordelia say nothing to indicate that she is the wise one, just like the Fool who opened Lear’s eyes to the truths that he was too blinded to see.

However, Cordelia is also a fool in the literal sense of the term. She was uncompromisingly honest to the point of being stubborn. Rather than saying nothing, she could have expressed her genuine love for her father while still upholding her dignity. At the tragic ending of the play, Lear said “And my fool is hanged” to refer to Cordelia’s unjustified death. Lear calling his daughter a fool in this context is an expression of endearment towards the only daughter who really loved him but was too “foolish” to say anything beyond nothing.

At least it isn’t raining…

Death and dying, King Lear, Tragedy, Uncategorized

As we discussed in class, it seems almost cruel that Shakespeare should show us one moment of harmonious justice only to tear it apart one moment afterwards. The entirety of the play seemed to be leading up to that triumphant moment when the true daughter would be reunited with her repentant father.

In the fairy tale version of this story that I grew up with, father and daughter are reunited in the end–after the father experiences a revelation as to the meaning of filial devotion and the dangers of excessive pride. (Here is a link to the various fairytale versions of the “how much do you love me” story http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/salt.html) In the link you can see how parallel King Lear is with the German “love like salt” tale.  Except for the tragic ending, where father and daughter die.

Now to get back to my original question, why? I think Shakespeare wanted to write a play that was more in the fun traditional Greek tragic style–where, you know, everyone dies and eyes are gouged out (think Oedipus, Antigone or The Trojan Women). What makes this play so especially tragic is that for all the constant grinding forward from bad to worse, we keep being tricked into thinking the horrible events have plateaued, or at least that there is room for optimism.

Edgar is one of the main vehicles for this unwarranted optimism. For example, in act 4 scene 1 right before he finds his disfigured father he says: “…The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, /Stands still in esperance, lives not in fear: /The worst returns to laughter…/The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst/ Owes nothing to they blasts.” This is incredibly painful to read a second time around because we know just low, dejected and wretched a thing fortune can make of man. It’s like something a vaudeville act; “well, at least it isn’t raining.”

Sweet optimism makes the bite of bitter fortune that much sharper. I cried when Lear carries Cordelia’s body out, maybe because I identified with the father daughter relationship. Maybe because nothing is more painful to me than the idea of a father suffering the loss of his child, of a father’s heart breaking. Perhaps Lear’s death was actually an act of mercy on Shakespeare’s part. To let him live after witnessing his daughter’s death would have been the cruelest punishment.

I suppose Cordelia had to die to show the audience how serious a crime it is to take unadorned love for granted. A father who takes his children for granted commits the greatest sin of all, throws away the most precious treasure. If Lear alone had died after his redemption it would not have been such a tragedy. He was elderly and in those days such a long life was a rarity, therefore it was not so unnatural for him to die.  But it is a a complete disruption of the natural order for an old man to bury his young daughter. Not only was she young, but beautiful and unendingly good. That is where the tragedy lies. 

I don’t think I have fully answered my own question, except to say that any other combination would not have been thoroughly tragic, and that is why Cordelia had to go.

 

 

Group Five Reflection: Getting to know the Fool

Character types, King Lear, Rhyme and pattern, The Fool, Tragic hero, Verbal texture

We ended the day of taping with the yearning to have had actual costumes to perform instead of what a student usually undergoes when completing a project: relief. As a group, we had been hooked by the performance that had just occurred at the Baruch Honors lounge. The details became apparent of what it took to stage a scene: the positions of the characters, furniture and even lighting all became factors that resulted in a different performance every time.

Having the lines read out loud showed the possibilities for the portrayal of the Fool, Kent and King Lear. The stage directions that seem meager at first became eye opening. For example, with the beginning of the Fool’s dialogue on stage directed at Kent, the questions of how much does this figure of comedy and honesty know? Getting the physicals of the performance right became as significant as the dialogue.

In each of our respective roles, we as group members got to find a new sense of recognition. Dariya, as the Fool, got particularly hung on the word coxcomb, but also saw how the Fool could be played exceedingly crazy, passionate or simply jovial. Trying to perfect just one is impossible; a range of emotion is necessary. Christopher, the King of all Lears, showed great power and the dedication necessary to fill the shoes of Lear. Chiffon, as Kent, served as a bridge of finesse who physically and spiritually occupied the ground between the two.

Christopher provided the best run-down of all the factors and quirks that came together in the formulation of the group five project:

“As a critique, I believe that with more time and practice we could have increased our level of dialogue and remembering of our lines, which is without a doubt the most challenging task of acting in general. Overall the time spent with the group was a wonderful experience and it would be nice to do another filming project with them in the near future.”

Included below are links to some familiar faces taking on the roles of King Lear and the Fool.

The first has Sam Waterson take on the role of the maddening monarch.

The second video grants the Fool a monologue to the scene performed by this humble group. Joe Powers, alone with Shakespeare’s lines, was able to capture the mastery and emotive powers necessary to do the role justice.

KING LEAR PLAYBILL

THE FOOL MONOLOGE

Layers of Lear

King Lear, The Fool

It is fascinating to follow the changes that  Lear undergoes in just the first three acts of King Lear. It is evident from on the start of the play that he is a man suffering from insecurities, and is reliant on the reassurance of others. We first see this in Act I, when Lear demands that his daughters express their love for him in order to obtain a portion of his property. It is as though he is begging them to verbally fight over him when he says, “Which of you shall we say doth love us most? That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge.”

We see again King Lear’s reliance on others, and his need to surround himself by those who will serve him, when he insists that his 100 knights remain with him even after his “retirement”. He is even willing to go out of his way by alternating between the homes Goneril and Regan in order that he should keep his knights by his side. “Ourself, by monthly course, With reservation of an hundred knights, By you to be sustain’d, shall our abode Make with you by due turns.”

The Fool is yet another character that seems to remain by Lear’s side throughout several scenes in the beginning of the play. However, it is in Act 3 Scene 4 that we see a change in King Lear, specifically when he orders the Fool to leave his side and find shelter from the violent storm, “Prithee, go in thyself: seek thine own ease:” As the fool goes to find cover, King Lear seems to have an epiphany.

“Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
Your loop’d and window’d raggedness, defend you
From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en
Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.”

In this speech, Lear seems to recognize the mistakes he made as king by not properly caring for the poor in his country. Lear is stripped away of not only the physical layers, a roof above his head that would protect his body, but the emotional layers as well, the people that would protect his ego. It seems that this is the first time in the play that we see King Lear thinking of others before himself.

Who’s Next?

Hamlet, King Lear

Although Shakespeare had crafted many characters and numerous plots, he still managed to tie them together. Hamlet and King Lear, for instance, both touch on the idea of succession. In Hamlet, Claudius murdered King Hamlet to seize the throne. In King Lear, the king passed down his kingdom to the wrong daughters. Both plays questioned the legitimacy of succession.

Perhaps Shakespeare found interest in exploring the idea of succession because of what was happening in England at the time. In the years between the writing of Hamlet and King Lear, the crown had been passed down from the “Virgin Queen” to James I. Towards the end of Elizabeth’s reign, the queen put a ban on the discussion of succession because she had neither married nor had children. Shakespeare, nonetheless, embedded the topic into his plays.

In both Hamlet and King Lear, succession had taken a turn for the worse. In Hamlet, Claudius’ rise to the crown was blatantly illegitimate. By killing his brother, Claudius not only had the opportunity to marry his wife but to also derail prince Hamlet from the path to becoming king. This situation stands in stark contrast with Harry’s situation in Henry IV, in which Harry suddenly had to assume the role of the “second-in-line.” To fix the illegitimate succession, Hamlet turned to destruction. Almost everyone died, except for Horatio who lived on to tell the story. Succession inevitably went on but beyond the scope of the play.

In King Lear, the king sought to fix his misjudging of character. Lear, like Elizabeth, had been on the throne for a long period of time. Lear was concerned with preserving his legacy. However, he was blindsided by the flattery of his daughters Goneril and Regan. The king turned all that he had into nothing.

King Lear and the emptiness of appearances.

Costumes and props, King Lear, Stage techniques, Tragedy

King Lear opens with Lear disowning his favorite daughter for her honesty and rewarding the empty flattery of her older sisters. Lear also rejects Kent, a loyal man who seeks to help Lear realize his error. Shakespeare examined the problems of valuing the appearance of the virtues and morality in many of his plays. Angelo in Measure for Measure and Macbeth are examples of powerful men who display the appearance of virtue but are secretly great criminals. Lear goes mad rather than face the truth that his daughters’ protestation of love was only empty flattery. Lear as a king holds the appearance of virtue but acts in a manner that directly opposes morality. It is only when he ventures into the heath with the Fool and Kent and is faced with the storm that he begins to understand the world as it really is. The irony is that the play’s most moral men all end up on the run in the heath. Each holds an appearance that is at odds with their character. They hold the likeness of the mad and the poor while the wicked live in opulence.