In Act III it seems that almost all of the traditional Elizabethan customs of how a society or an individual in a society should act are disregarded and completely tossed to the wayside. The old or older characters are treated harshly if not cruelly by the younger characters from mere acts of rudeness to blatant forms and acts of violence against one another. Both Regan and Goneril treat their father King Lear as an invalid even before he loses his mind. They are crude and disrespectful towards him as soon as he hands over his throne to them. Their brutality is most surely a foreshadowing to what is to come not only in Act III but for the rest of the play. Both girls ignore the customary traditions of respect and to care of the older people in their society. They tell Lear that he must give up his servants and when he agrees to their conditions they slowly begin lower the amount of how many servants he can keep until they get down to zero, angering him so much that he would rather sleep outside during a storm then stay with either of his daughters. His daughters willingness and almost push of Lear to stay outside all night in a storm is only a furtherance of their lack of respect and dismay of the traditional customs or how someone should treat the older people of the community especially how a daughter should treat her father. The disregard for the social customs is again looked at when Regan and Cornwall brutalize and blind Gloucester. By traditional standards there should be a trial and a hearing to discuss the punishment for an alleged traitor.
| REGAN: Ingrateful fox, ’tis he. |
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| CORNWALL: Bind fast his corky arms. |
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| GLOUCESTER: What mean your graces? Good my friends, consider You are my guests. Do me no foul play, friends. |
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30 | CORNWALL: Bind him, I say.
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| REGAN: Hard, hard.—O filthy traitor! |
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| GLOUCESTER: Unmerciful lady as you are, I’m none. |
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In this case Cornwall and Regan take it upon themselves to punish Gloucester. Not only do they disregard the laws but they disregard the formal customs of respect, politeness and honor because during this time when they are punishing Gloucester they are in his house. The way in which they handle Gloucester by pulling on him and tying him up are disgraceful acts by themselves; a nobleman was never to be treated this way according to the proper traditions and customs. It has seemed however, that in all of the previous Shakespeare plays we have looked at most of the unruly and cruel characters seem to get what they deserve in the end so I'm interested to find out what will happen to Goneril, Regan and Cornwall.
2 comments:
It's excellent that you note the violations of hospitality in this play, Alissa--a very important theme throughout, and an important elaboration on the idea of "custom" we discussed last week. Not all customs are bad, after all! This is an idea that carries forward to _Macbeth_, where the murder of Duncan gets presented as a violation of custom, as well.
I completely agree with you. I found it completely odd the lack of respect in this play for elders. I just couldn't believe the way the girls treated their father; taking away his knights, that was so cruel! I mean how could they deceive him like that and start off by telling him he can have half of them stay and then go and change their mind to NONE! I just feel like the power, wealth and land they were inheriting for them got to their heads. I think once they got what they wanted they had no use for their father and didn't care about anyone but themselves. Unfortunately we tend to see that happen a lot to people that come into money.
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