King Lear by Shakespeare - Literature review Example

“King Lear” is the most tragic of all Shakespeare’s plays. Lear’s sufferings exceed everything that fell to the lot of those, whose tragedies were told by Shakespeare before and after this work. Depicting the struggle of two worlds, the old feudal one and the newly born bourgeois society, the drama is distinguished by the width and cosmic scale of the representation. Lear’s destiny is determined by this struggle of the worlds only to a certain degree. The two social systems, the patriarchal way of life, and the new one, giving birth to individualism of the young generation, left their traces on Lear’s character. Lear inherited and perceived bad and good traits from both of them. The story of King Lear teaches us that the attaching of excessive importance to things in the material world causes passions and suffering. At the beginning the bad overwhelms in Lear’s character. We see Lear-despot. On the one hand his despotism origins from the feudal prerogative of a monarch. On the other one, being an outstanding person, surrounded by universal admiration, he gets a false idea that his royal dignity rests upon his personal superiority. Like the rest of the characters, Lear possesses a highly developed individualistic consciousness, which is a feature of the new psychology. Unfortunately, this awareness of personal dignity acquires one-sided, egoistic character, which reveals itself in excessively high estimation of the self, reaching the utmost degree of self-adoration. This feature was born by the social structure itself, where everybody praised his greatness, where everything seemed to happen according to his will. Believing that it is his personality that mattered, Lear loses his common sense and resigns his throne, sure that people won’t stop tremble for him. This crazy belief makes him hand the kingdom to his daughters, become a man without a title and experience all the woes associated with human life. In the course of the play we see, however, that Lear continues clutching at his feudal dignity. The perception of his being a king has strong roots in him and the habit of commanding the others does not leave him even when he, rejected and abandoned, wanders in the field. In delirium, he cries: “No, they cannot touch me for coining; I am the king himself”; “Ay, every inch a king: When I do stare, see how the subject quakes” (IV, 6). His insanity lies in the fact hat he continues considering himself the king, the man standing above the rest, while the enlightment will come as he sees his madness and feels simply a human being, not needing power, titles and general worship. Lear’s way to the enlightment is associated with deep agony. First we see his proud self-conceit. He requires his daughters compete in their expression of flattering idolatry of him. He is pointed to his stupidity for trusting the speeches of the elder daughters, but vainly. He is sure he is worthy of the adoration expressed by Regan and Goneril. Their lies correspond to his self-estimation. Cordelia’s silence annoys him, while he is convinced of his royal-human greatness. He measures his daughters by his own attitudes to them. Loving Cordelia more than the other two, he thinks that it obliges her for special appraisal of his person. Lear values not the true feeling of people, but the reflection of himself and his attitudes. Having put his own person in the center of the world, Lear views himself as the human values standard. Even the punishment of Kent and Cordelia reflects his belief that excommunication from his person is the greatest penalty, as if only he gave light and warmth in life. Lear possesses good traits as well. So his convincement that power will belong to him even after he rejects its formal features and that his bright personality will be conveyed ever clearer then reveals not only his naïve overestimation of self-importance, but also his noble idealism. This feature of his serves as the basis for the future transformation of Lear’s worldviews. Giving up the material attributes of his power, he strives to show that the importance of an individual is determined by his personal merits. Lear is proud not only of his royal title, but human greatness, though also overestimating it. Gradually, the reality breaches his pride. Then we see that his pride is combined with shallow vanity. So Lear estimates his significance by the number of people serving to him. Having rejected the throne he leaves one hundred knights, who are to realize his whims and with noise announce his arrival. Lear still wants everybody to obey him. That is why he so painfully reacts to his daughters’ demand of the retinue reduction. He needs it for the parade as the decoration of his greatness, while Goneril and Regan want to deprive Lear of the last real means of power he has left to himself. Lear desperately clings to this last bulwark of his power, suffering from the insult to his pride, astonished by the daughters’ ingratitude, but most of all tormented by his impotence to influence the situation. For the first time in his life Lear feels that his will meets resistance, he cannot crush or punish. The feeling of self-impotence makes him start realizing his fall. The argumentation about the retinue eventually grows into a philosophic problem: what human need to be human? In response to Regan’s words that he doesn’t need any servants, Lear expresses thoughts indicating that his retinue determines his being and perception: O, reason not the need: our basest beggars If only to go warm were gorgeous, Are in the poorest thing superfluous: Why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear'st, Allow not nature more than nature needs, Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But, for true need (II, 4). Man's life's as cheap as beast's: thou art a lady; Gorgeousness has warmed Lear so far. He measures humanity in terms of surplus over what is the need. Lear defends his right for what he needs, while it seems to him to be the major indicator of the human meaning and greatness. Lear still believes that human dignity is defined by the material goods he possesses. Comprehension of the fact that without his possessions he lost his power, starts ruining the bases of Lear’s worldviews and way of life. He wanted to possess personal superiority, but it turned out that his values were mere illusion. The world does not obey him any more. Even his daughters, who must obey in accordance with all the laws of nature and society, do not give a pin for him. All the foundations of his life have collapsed, and Lear’s mind cannot stand it. When seeing what the world is, Lear loses his reason. Mad Lear goes into fields at night. He leaves not his daughters, but the world where he wanted to be above all. The nature does not meet him friendly, but with a thunderstorm. However, the outside storm is not that awful as the storm in Lear’s soul. The nature cannot harm him more than his daughters have. Inhuman essence of egoism reveals itself first in daughters’ ingratitude, and Lear’s ire is directed against them. However, it is not enough to curse them. Lear wants to understand the nature of human harshness. “Then let them anatomize Regan; see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that makes these hard hearts? (III, 6). Having become the outcast Lear turns to the outcasts in the face of Kent, Tom from Bedlam and fool, asking them to judge his stony-hearted daughters, reigning in the world of power and richness. Lear’s madness is real, though everything he says and does is filled with sense. As Edgar describes his delirium: “O, matter and impertinency mix'd! Reason in madness!” (IV, 6). Lear’s thought is turning around questions associated with his previous and present situation. In his madness he reinterprets his life experience, estimating it from the new point of view. The first sign of his spiritual revolution is that he starts thinking of others. The storm is lashing him unmercifully, but Lear – for the first time in his life - thinks about other outcasts. Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are, Too little care of this! That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, Take physic, pomp; How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en And show the heavens more just (III, 4). The former Lear would never have said this, while he cared only of himself. The transformed Lear starts realizing that besides human greatness there exist human troubles and poverty, and no real greatness have the right to ignore those who are not settled and protected. This is the lesson Lear teaches himself. Now as he has learnt the woe and suffering, he is able to feel suffering of others. In the field he meets Edgar, disguised as Tom from Bedlam. In this wretched and miserable creature he sees a human being. Earlier he believed that humanity is determined by the surplus. Now as he sees Tom, who doesn’t have the most necessary things, Lear exclaims: Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume. Ha! here's three on 's are sophisticated! Thou art the thing itself:unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings! come unbutton here. (III, 4). Lear tears off his clothes. He, who used to think that it is impossible to live without the retinue, now has grasped that he is only a poor, naked two-legged animal. This clothes throwing off has a symbolic sense: Lear discards everything alien and husk, external and superfluous, which has prevented him from being what he is. He doesn’t want to be counterfeit any more. The mad Lear understands the life better than the Lear who considered himself a great wise man. He realizes that he lived entangled in lie, which he willingly believed while it was pleasant: “They flattered me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say 'ay' and 'no' to every thing that I said!--'Ay' and 'no' too was no good divinity. When the rain came to wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I found 'em, there I smelt 'em out. Go to, they are not men o' their words: they told me I was every thing; 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof” (IV, 6). He experiences his second birth, the process always connected with suffering. So he says to Gloucester: “When we are born, we cry that we are come To this great stage of fools” (IV, 6). His second birth passes in awful pain, while his false perceptions of the world have crashed down, but the life he sees around is senseless and cruel. The renewed Lear does not bear with the injustice taking place in the world. He, who was the major column of injustice, now condemns it. He is preoccupied with the desire to judge, and not only his daughters but all those who are cruel to others. One of the most pathetic scenes in the tragedy is the episode when Lear meets the blind Gloucester. Lear sees now that injustice reigns everywhere taking its roots in the inequality. “Thou hast seen a farmer's dog bark at a beggar? And the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog's obeyed in office” (IV, 6). The power he used to boast of rested on injustice. Another Lear’s illusion that crashed down was that the powerful are fair. Now he realizes that they are the source of troubles for other people. “Look with thine ears: - says lear to Gloucester, - see how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places; and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief?” The problem is that the surplus giving people a decent appearance, in fact, disguises their defective essence: power and richness make such people unpunished, while the poor are not protected. Through tatter'd clothes small vices do appear; And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks: Robes and furr'd gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, Arm it in rags, a pigmy's straw does pierce it (IV, 6). Having seen the injustice reigning in the world, Lear becomes the protector of the wretched, who are victims of the cruel and unfair law. Lear condemns those people, who support the unfair system. Lear addresses them with bitter irony, telling to the blind Gloucester: Get thee glass eyes; And like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not (IV, 6). This speech is one of the brightest accusations with the help of which Shakespeare expressed his protest against social injustice. Lear’s tragedy began as a tragedy of an outstanding personality. However, by the end of the play the author describes the tragedy of the poor. Lear feels that his greatest blame was his blame before Cordelia. As he wakes up, sane and clothed richly in her palace, he cannot believe that she has forgiven him. Joyce Carol Oates (1974) expressed the impression of this scene in wonderful words: The moment of Lear's awakening is one of the most moving scenes in our literature, coming as it does after so much grotesque and senseless horror; it marks not simply the reconciliation of King and mistreated, exiled daughter, the reconciliation of the tyrannical, aggressive Lear and his loving, all-forgiving Cordelia, but the mysterious moment of "awakening" of the soul itself—for Cordelia, with her unearned kiss, symbolizes that moment of grace that forces the tragic action to a temporary halt, and allows a magical synthesis of the bliss of eternity and the tragedy of time that is so powerful in Shakespeare, because it is so rare. He kneels down before her, wondering why she cries. Now Lear knows that the greatest treasures are spiritual calmness and intimacy with those you love. This belief is heard in his words: “Come, let's away to prison: We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage” (V, 3). Only now he is happy, without his throne and power. He doesn’t understand Cordelia’s tears of impotence. He thinks those are tears of weakness and he soothes his daughter. Lear’s way to the wisdom was long and difficult. However, the most tragic trial waits for him at the end. As Lear appears with the dead daughter in his arms, we realize that it is only now that he has really lost everything. Woe and madness seize him again: Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones: And my poor fool is hang'd! No, no, no life! Had I your tongues and eyes, I'ld use them so Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, That heaven's vault should crack. She's gone for ever! (V, 3) And thou no breath at all? (V, 3) This last blow is too much for Lear. Till his last breath Lear hopes that Cordelia has not died. Astonished he looks at her lips, This feather stirs; she lives! if it be so, Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows Look there, look there! (V, 3). That ever I have felt (V, 3). Bur Cordelia’s lips do not move. Life has gone from this body. Lear cannot survive this last sorrow. He dies. The tragedy is over. The bloody chaos has ended. However, it leaves many questions to be answered. Why should people suffer so much and so strong, if we are likely to lose the dearest things? Can we change this cruel nature of things? Perhaps, it is possible to make life much better. Then what should be done or not done? There is one universal law, reflected in everything in this world: from human physiology to the way our Universe works. It is homeostasis, the tendency for the balance. Systems react to changes in external and internal environments launching a series of modifications directed opposite to the phenomena causing the disturbance. The goal is always the same – to maintain the internal balance (Rosnay 1997). King Lear is the play that demonstrates to us how the law works, teaching that common sense and balance in everything may help us to gain equilibrium, which is so important for our survival. Soap-opera passions, grievous insults and overestimation of self-importance or the significance of events and ideals lead to problems and sufferings. Mark R. Schwehn (1993), contemplating on the lessons parents and children could draw out of the play, concludes: King Lear moves us to understand the visions, wordless discernings, disguises, longings, refusals, blood-lusts, fears, rivalries, hopes, blessings, mistakes, sorrows, apprehensions, and "touching" moments of grace that are all a part of the lived experience of filial and parental love. Ethics may be finally a matter of perception, of seeing the human world aright, and perception in matters of love and justice just is a matter of seeing the world feelingly. Charity and grace, after all, defy reason, at least the concept of reason that was prevalent among Shakespeare’s contemporaries and that still prevails among many today. The play teaches us that reason is not always right also. The voice of mind often makes us pursue false ideals and targets. Listening to the weak voice of our soul we are able to comprehend what is right and wrong, just as Cordelia knew it. The play is so multidimensional that each generation is able to find new themes for examination, arousing new questions and searching for new answers. However, the truth seems simple: it is in balance. References: Oates, Joyce Carol (1974). Is This the Promised End?”: The Tragedy of King Lear. Originally published in the Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, (Fall). Available at: jco.usfca.edu/lear.html - 82k (October 15, 2007) Rosnay, J. (1997), Homeostasis, Principa Cibernetica Web, Available at: pespmc1.vub.ac.be/HOMEOSTA.html - 9k (October 15, 2007) Schwehn, Mark R. (1993). King Lear Beyond Reason: Love and Justice in the Family. First Things (October). Available at: www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9310/schwehn.html - 64k (October 15, 2007) Read More