My Issues with King Lear:

I don't know what it is about this play that makes me feel so strangely about it. On the one hand, I am completely enthralled by the story, and I think the writing is great—but on the other, I feel like much is all so unrealistic. For instance, I don't understand how Lear can be so foolish. Having only read the first Act, but also having read the Norton introduction, I have caught myself thinking: “Well, this doesn't have to turn out so bad, every wrong can easily be righted, but I know it won't be, and that seems ridiculous.” From the very beginning, Lear is a bumbling fool, overreacting to the subjection of entire relationships based on their answer to a single question. Kent and Cordelia, those who are most true in their love for Lear, are shunned, like the family of an addict in the midst of a self destruction. Is that what Lear is? Is he so addicted to his concept of an almost godlike kingship that he desires not order through the division of dowry, but a childish desire for chaos, that of which most certainly follows? I recall every relationship I've ever destroyed, and lament with certain stages of each subconsciously calculated explosion: beginning with immense jealousy, an unsatisfied need for comforting love, followed by inquisition, paranoia, and rash decisions. But what makes no sense to me is an absurdity we see in the exchanges of a seasoned king:

FOOL: If thou wert my fool, nuncle, I'd have thee beaten for

being old before thy time.

LEAR: How's that?

FOOL: Thou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

LEAR: O, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!

Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!

Enter GENTLEMAN

How no! Are the horses ready? (1.5.34-40)

In lines 1.5.34-35, there is some for Lear to be mad at the fool for saying (even a hypothetical beating seems disrespectful), however Lear is calm in his approaching, “How's that?” The Fool continues in 1.5.37 to call Lear out on his faults. If the king were to do nothing and say nothing, he would be wise, much like how Goneril addresses Albany's silence in 1.4.320-323: “. . .This milky gentleness and course of yours / Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon, / You are much more attaxed for want of wisdom / Than praised for harmful mildness.” She essentially says, I am impressed more with your calm and coolness than upset that this can be interpreted as unfruitful nothingness. But Lear is not wise, as we see him wrestle with sanity and even temperedness (those problems which seem like the inner battles a young man, not an old king) and abruptly send for his horses (1.5.38-40). This last point reminds me of that repeated idea nothing can come from nothing. It seems that Goneril proves correctly that much can come from nothing, philosophically and literally, as Albany's wisdom shines through his commented nothingness, and Lear's lack of which is seen through quick, imprudent decisions. I'm not sure I would call Goneril wise for understanding this concept, however, I will say that she at least is aware of certain realities, something that makes her an effective player in these games, regardless of her despicable ethics (while Lear trudges on ineffectively).