Missing Blog

During my confusion I missed a blog post for the course, and Professor Mulready was kind enough to let me post it before the final. For the fifth act of King Lear I am particularly taken with the confusion over the death of the Fool, and how it can be incorporated with the death of Cordelia.....was she ultimately Lear's fool? When one thinks of a stereotypical fool in Shakespearean literature Cordelia does not fit the part: she is not there for the king's amusement, and is not at the king's every beck and call. However Cordelia and the Fool have one great similarity, and that is their frankness with the aging king. Cordelia would not give into then naive nature of the king by refusing to fawn over him; unlike her sisters, Cordelia told Lear blatantly that she loved him like a daughter should love her father, no more and no less. The Fool also is blunt with Lear, telling the king that HE was the fool, more of a fool with the proper name, for believing his other daughters Goneril and Regan with their manipulative ways of flattery.

Another attribute that could suggest the Fool and Cordelia are one in the same is because the Fool vanishes from the play, and during the death of Cordelia, Lear holds her body and cries that his fool is dead: notes from the Norton Shakespeare suggest that Lear was speaking about Cordelia. Cordelia and the Fool have commented on the other, however, with each one calling the other a fool, respectively. It was common in Shakespeare's time for actors to play more than one role simultaneously, and since the Fool and Cordelia never had any time together on the stage it could be implied they may have been the same character.