Concluding King Lear

The ending of King Lear was at one time completely changed for performance, and it is not difficult to determine why. While the play is a tragedy and deaths are to be expected, the gravity of the situation at hand in this play is just immensely sad. First of all, the number of deaths in the play is exceedingly large. Regan and Goneril end up poisoned, Gloucester, Edmund, Lear, and Cordelia all end up killed in different ways, and Cornwall dies from wounds inflicted upon him by a servant.  In some interpretations the fool dies as well, and that death in particular seems completely unnecessary and uncalled for. However, the aspect that makes this play truly hard-hitting when it comes to how depressing it is definitely the fact that Cordelia's death is supposed to be prevented, but isn't simply because the messenger doesn't get to her in time. 

When King Lear enters with his daughter's body and shouts "howl, howl, howl, howl! O you are men of stones" the ending gets even more intense (p. 2565, 5.3.256). Both Lear's animalistic qualities and pure human aspects are coming together to grieve for this horrible loss that has been forced upon him, and we can see and feel how truly affected by this loss Lear is and as a reader we feel his pain. When Lear then dies shortly thereafter, it is almost something of a relief for him, and whenever death offers relief for anyone in any situation it is incredibly indicative of what sort of situation surrounds him or her.

Once all of the deaths have taken place, the conclusion of the play shows us Kent, Edgar, and Albany being the only characters left alive. They discuss how they must begin to rebuild their world and say that “the weight of this sad time [they] must obey” (p. 2567, 5.3.322).  What can be seen here is that even the three men who until this point (or various points which were all very recent in the text) were not prone to feel sympathy towards these dying characters can feel and are feeling the full impact of the emotion during this conclusion. The whole ending combined with the madness that occurs within the play as a whole merges to make for an incredibly emotional journey for the reader and the characters within the work.

Tell Me Lies

The first aspect of the play I noticed as I read the first act is the negative reception received from King Lear at being confronted with honesty.  The first instance in which this is demonstrated is when King Lear is partitioning his land to his three daughters.  He has each daughter express the immensity of her love for him, and makes a game out that can rightly be called “Who loves me most?”  When his two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, flatter their father with such profound pronouncements of love, which we can tell are superficial in nature, he receives them well and marks their land inheritances on the map.  When Coredelia’s turn arrives the king expects her to try to surpass her elder sisters in her love for him as her father, but instead she states “I love your majesty / According to my bond [filial duty]; nor more nor less” (1.1.91-92).  He insists that she speak more lovingly to him, but she refuses to sweet-talk him and remains honest and sincere:          

                              Good my lord,

                              You have begot me, bred me, loved me; I

                              Return those duties back as they are right fit,

                              Obey you, love you, and most honor you.  (1.1.94-97)

She explains to her father that it seems questionable for her sisters to have husbands if they love him above all else, which hints at their insincerity.  Cordelia tells him that when she marries, half of her love will go to her husband, as it should, while the other half shall stay with him.  Her honesty is not received well, as he denies her any inheritance and disowns her as his daughter.  King Lear demonstrates here that flattery is what appeals to him.  This relates to his insistence on keeping his one hundred knights.  By having them around him, King Lear remains powerful and noble looking.  Superficial and shallow is the king, who cares very much about appearance and frivolous things.  He wants the title of king and the splendor that comes from being king, but he does not want to be burdened with the stress and woes of the position.  This truly reveals how phony he is, and how skewed his priorities are.

               We see another instance in which honesty and truthfulness are not acknowledged in a positive light when Kent stands up for the disowned Cordelia.  Kent, having served King Lear many years, truly honors him, but feels that he has stepped out of line in his reaction to Cordelia’s response (excuse the improper structureof inset quotation - certain lines did not fit well and needed to be moved down to maintain the clean "block-like" appearance, else they would be jutting out):

                              Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,

                              When power to flattery bows?  To plainness [plain speaking] 

                               honor’s bound,                                   

                              When majesty stoops to folly.  Reverse thy 

                              doom [revoke your sentence],

                              And, in thy best consideration, check [halt]

                              This hideous rashness.  (1.1.147-151)

Kent insists that Cordelia loves does not love King any less than his other two daughters, and that her words contain no insincerity within them.  Lear becomes infuriated with Kent’s questioning of his decision to disown Cordelia and his defending of her behavior.  The disgruntled king lays his hand on his sword, ready to attack Kent!  This seems pretty drastic to me, especially considering how much Kent has done for him.  He banishes Kent and threatens to have him killed if he sets foot within kingdom.  King Lear’s admonishment of Cordelia’s and Kent’s honesty is ridiculous.  It is as if King Lear is saying “Tell me lies” because those sweet words of falsehood provide him with a sense of security.

a selfish, egotistical man

     Throughout the opening of the play, King Lear has decided to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. In addition to diving his land, King Lear has decided that he will take turns living with each of his daughters along with all his men, which for a King is an extremely large group. All he wants in exchange for his land is for his daughters to tell him how much he means to them and how much they love him. Lear only wants to hear this as an ego boost- he gains no real gratification from it other than to feel good about himself. Goneril and Regan, his two older daughters give Lear what he wants; they flatter him and tell him that they love him more than anything else-in reality they only want the land. Cordelia, however, tells Lear that there are no words to express her love for him. This angers Lear because all he wants is to hear his favorite daughter proclaim her love for him. She refuses and as a result, she is banished.
     The opening of the play shows readers just how selfish Lear can be. He only wants his daughters to tell him how much he is loved because it makes him feel good about himself. When Cordelia refuses, he is so angry that his youngest and most favorite daughter has nothing to say that he just immediately disowns her. He is acting out of anger and will come to greatly regret this choice; Cordelia was the only daughter of his that really loved him and wasn't after his riches and land.
     However, is requesting that his daughters take turns allowing their father to live with them even more self-centered? After all, Lear did raise the three daughters and gave them everything they have, which now includes a vast amount of land. Is it too much to ask that him and his men live with them, or is it just something that a daughter should want to do for the man that helped give her life?
     The beginning of the play paints Lear as a very egotistical, greedy and needy person. He only divides his land and asks his daughters to state how much they love him in an effort to feel better about himself. He tells his daughters that he will be taking turns living with them, which would be a simple request if all of his men weren't tagging along for the ride. Just within the first act, Lear seems like a very selfish person who does whatever he wants- but will he come to regret his choices? Will Lear ever change from a selfish man into a caring and loving person?

Loyalty

Sam Montagna

Professor Mulready

Shakespeare II

9 April 2012

Loyalty

It is very clear from Act I where everyone's loyalty lies. Unfortunately, King Lear is listening to the wrong people. Lear decides to divide up his kingdom based on how much his daughters claim how much they love him. Well, any ambitious leader will say whatever it takes to get what they want. Goneril and Reagan both declare that they love their father more than anything. Cordelia says she only loves him as much as duty requires. Lear does not give Cordelia anything and the rest goes to his other two daughters, who treat him terribly after the land is given and conspire to get rid of him. Lear has nobody to blame but himself. He is the King and is supposed to be strong and be able to protect his kingdom. By allowing his kingdom to be given away solely based on declarations of love, he is, in fact, disloyal to his own kingdom. He is leaving the kingdom with an uncertain future. 

Lear does not even seem to pay attention to the people that are loyal to him. They are the ones who tell the truth, which is what a King needs to rely on. Kent goes out of his way to try to get the King to listen. The fool constantly tells the King how it is. He does not hold anything back. A strong king is supposed to be able to weed out traitors. Instead, Lear is listening to the traitors. As soon as his daughters' attitude change towards him, Lear should have realized where he went wrong. The fool tells Lear that Lear is the fool for giving up his power “Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house./ Why?/ Why, to put 's head in, not to give it away to his daughters and leave is horns without a case.” (2375.25-28). Lear has left himself vulnerable and at the mercy of his not-so-loving daughters. 

However, it can be said that Lear is not in his right mind. Goneril recognizes that he is not the King he used to be. “I would you would make use of your good wisdom/ Whereof I know you are fraught, and put away/ these dispositions which of late transport you/ from what you rightly are” (2369.185-188). The king is acting differently than he normally would. He is acting crazy, foolish and un-king-like. So, is Lear too far gone to help himself? Will he let the wrong people walk all over him even when the right people are pointing out what needs to be done? The play is a tragedy. It is fairly obvious that Lear will not have a happy ending. Lear is a failing King because he decides to give in to his insecurities and rely on superficial words instead of the advice of his loyal friends.

Challenges of interpretation

What is King Lear’s darker purpose? If there’s one thing Shakespeare readers can depend on, it’s Lear’s totally undependable characterization. Is he insane? Is he senile? Is he fragile? Is he wicked? Is he sympathetic? One can interpret just a single line of Lear’s dialogue in a squabillion ways.

In 1.1, Lear divides his kingdom among two of his three daughters by way of a diabolical test of their love – “Which of you shall we say doth love us [me] most?” (Lear, 1.1.49). Trying to picture the delivery of his lines and his physical comportment in act one is like trying to explain to a child why Van Gogh cut his own ear off. It doesn’t help that stage directions are scarce. But the challenge is kind of fun, and I’m sure play directors and filmmakers who have adapted the play would agree.

I could picture the delivery of Lear’s lines during the test in 1.1 a few different ways. Lear says to Cordelia, after she says she has no answer to his test (but more specifically—and perplexingly—she really says, “nothing”), “How, how, Cordelia! mend your speech a little,/Lest it may mar your fortunes” (1.1.2495). First, I thought, he totally says this line with a wink and a nudging elbow. Totally. But he also says it with clenched teeth and narrow eyes. Or maybe he says it with a little chuckle, like a self-conscious Santa Claus. Actually, he says it as a calm scolding, raising his voice but not shouting. You get the idea. It’s open to interpretation.

I don’t know if making stage directions sparse was a standard theatrical convention in Shakespeare’s time, but it works in this play. Really, all of Shakespeare’s plays are more compelling because of the scarcity of stage directions. Aside from encouraging the reader to feel confident in their capability of interpreting Shakespeare, the scarcity of stage directions packs a thematic punch. Less is more. The thematic implications of the stage directions, whether they are absent or (strategically) present, are wonderfully perplexing.

Of course, these revelations don’t get me much closer to figuring out Lear’s characterization. The dude is still massively complex and mysterious. The play is still massively complex and mysterious. Shakespeare is still massively complex and mysterious! I think that’s the point.

I guess the challenge of reading this play is settling on one or two interpretations of the characters and themes and then seeing those interpretations through to the end. As I’m still not sure what my idea of Lear is right now, it’s hard to say how consistent I’ll be in forming and maintaining a cohesive idea of him later on in my reading. But is trying to define an "idea" of Lear even the right approach to understanding him? 

All I can say is, Shakespeare knows what’s up. It’s not easy to understand people at all. They’re not cardboard cutouts and they don’t come with an instruction manual. Lear really does deliver his lines in all of the ways I can think of, because he has all of the qualities I can think of.  

Shakespeare for the illiterate!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZBS6e1msHs

I chose this resource because I wanted to find something out of the ordinary that might help someone who is Shakespeare "illiterate." This source is a decent starting block for those who find Shakespearean plots and/or language overly convoluted. This video in particular breaks down King Lear for us in manageable chunks, although it at times becomes unmanageably annoying. The major questions it raises for me are ones of Shakespeare's complexity versus his accessibility. Are Shakespeare's plots simple but portrayed in a convoluted way or are they convoluted inherently in the amount of levels they operate on? At least this puts the plot in terms that those of us who find the Elizabethan wordplay a bit much to start with. Is it best to understand the plot first and then dive into the text or is it better to derive the plot from the text to better understand it? I tend to believe the prior, or else Shakespeare would not give us all this exposition in the form of asides and soliloquy. This is a pretty useful resource for those just starting on reading King Lear, but becomes obsolete when one needs to consider deeper meanings in the text.

King Lear- An Internal Debate and Ramblings on Who Should Have Died and Who Deserved to Live

Is it necessary for more than half of the characters to die to prove that this play is a tragedy? I’m not fully convinced. At the end of the play, Edmund, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, Lear, Oswald, Cornwall, and Gloucester are all dead. Albany, Kent, and Edgar are the only remaining (main) characters. I do not believe that all of the characters who were killed off really needed to die; I think that maybe if a few crucial characters had died, the dramatic effect would have been just as gripping. For instance, if I had to choose, I would say that Cordelia and Edmund would have sufficed to be the only characters killed off. In this case, Cordelia’s death would have impacted her sisters Goneril and Regan as well as her father Lear, leading them to reflect on their past actions and their treatment of Cordelia. Their sadness in the loss of Cordelia would be tragic without being overdramatic. Edmund’s death would impact Gloucester, his father, and Edgar, his half-brother, causing them to reflect on their past treatment of Edmund, having regarded him as a bastard child, not a fully-fledged brother or son. I think that there would be more power in the death of Edmund than in the death of Gloucester, however, I do see the value in having Gloucester die. The fact that Gloucester’s eyes were gauged out proved to be highly symbolic to me. In the past, Gloucester was blind to the way he treated his sons, the way he favored Edgar and regarded Edmund as illegitimate thus less important and less deserving. When Gloucester learns that “Edgar” wants to kill him, he quickly changes sides, if you will, deciding to believe Edmund in fear of his life. This change of heart seems curious to me: if Gloucester cared for Edgar and knew his normal behavior and intentions, why would he be so quick and unquestioning of the forged letter? Is this to prove the naiveté of Gloucester’s character?

Cornwall could have chosen to kill or injure Gloucester in any way, but he chooses to gauge out his eyes, thus blinding him. I think that the physical, literal sense of blinding parallels the mental nature of Gloucester—he was blind to the way he treated his sons and the way he was easily persuaded. It is only when he is blinded that Gloucester finally begins to realized his past wrongs and has a change of heart and action. Interestingly, in both the characters of Lear and Gloucester, physical and emotional weakness served to make better, more aware and caring men, (it only took utter insanity and gauged out eyes for them to realize their wrongs…). I think that if Gloucester had been left blinded and had not died, the play would have been equally effective. However, I suppose I understand why he was chosen to die—Gloucester learning from his mistakes and misfortunes and living happily ever after just would not cut it in a tragic Shakespearean play.

Now she’s gone forever

King Lear’s fall is an obvious one to point out. When we first meet Lear he is an aging yet still power-wielding monarch, and at the play’s conclusion we wave goodbye to an old man once king heading to kingdom come sans crown. And that’s just the tip of the peripatetic iceberg. Tied to every royal is the fate of a nation (which is why today’s Britons prefer their fate in the red-hot hands of William the Dashing and not in the pale hands of Charles the Bore). Despite his attempts at fostering otherwise, Lear’s nation has fallen into political madness due to the selfishness of the very people to whom Lear reasoned he should bequeath Britannia. Put together Fortune’s fun with man and country is relatively easy to pin point. But what concerns this blog post is not the question of Lear’s unfortunate fortune, but instead what I’m interested in is pin pointing Lear’s point of recognition and its implications. Now to this point, we point.

“A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all! I might have saved her!” If the object of Lear’s vitriol were indeed singular and directed only at the Captain then at least his words would half-truth be -- the other half being the half he himself would contribute to the current plagued state of events. But Lear directs his condemnation at the tragedy’s least guilty and inarguably its most redemptive and still living characters (tear drop, Cordelia. Tear drop, lowly classed brave heart): the honorable Kent, the redeeming Edgar, and the judicious Albany (an ironic and funny anachronism, don’t cha think). Lear’s condemnation is of course woefully, or more to our meta-theatrical play, pitifully ignorant. Murderers? Traitors? He might have saved her? Puh-lease. About the only thing he saved was defeat from the jaws of victory (Oh! Two snaps and a crown in yo' face!)

Here Shakespeare leaves little room for audiences to expect that in the tragedy’s final moments Lear will explicitly recognize his culpability in Cordelia’s death. So what do we get instead? In the opening scene, Lear doesn’t recognize Cordelia’s honesty and the true simplicity of her love for him. Telling his daughter to refit her words to fit his fancy, Lear says “Nothing, will come of nothing, speak again” and when she does not modify her speech he banishes her from his sight, court, and royal fortunes. So I’m interested in interpreting Lear’s recognition as an implicit one. Perhaps the moment when, after he brings in his daughter’s dead body, he mistakenly thinks Cordelia might still be alive. Here, Lear can’t recognize Cordelia in life or death. He doesn’t know her beating heart. Lear does finally recognize his daughter fully, but unfortunately for him it’s too late: “Now she’s gone forever!”

Poor guy.

Ring Bearer

For this post I want to talk about an underlying motif that I picked up on; namely, the Ring in all its forms and iterations. If you replace K with R and L with B (and add an “er” at the end), like Frodo, King Lear becomes a Ring Bearer. In the beginning, he cuts his ring (crown) in half and finds that like a split egg after the meat’s been eaten or a Zero (whose first letter “zed” is considered superfluous) or a “shealed peascod,” Lear is left with nOthing (1.4.174). This tragic sense of loss also resonates with the repetition of the exclamatory O, as in “O heavens!” or “World, World, O World,” which recalls the celestial and earthly spheres that spin the characters’ Wheel of Fortune. By the end of act IV Lear’s “wheel runs down a hill” and transmutes into a wheel of fire (2.4.67, 4.7.47). If you transmute his wheels into eyes and fire into blood you have the fate of Gloucester, who’s son Edgar shape-shifts into a fiend whose “eyes were two full moons” (4.6.70). It’s interesting that this fiend (who’s really Edgar himself) is associated with the moon, because in the magical tradition the moon is associated with the influences of our past, and as we know, Gloucester is now suffering, in a karmically fit way, for his earlier figurative blindness and the subsequent demonization of Edgar. Both Lear and Gloucester end up with a fiery wheel and bloody eyes (respectively) partly because, as the Fool say, “He’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf” (3.6.16). In other words, madness arises out of an inability to see the true nature of the world. That doesn’t mean we should automatically tend toward adverse criticism--then you might end up like Edmund--but rather we need attentiveness, patience, and thoughtful deliberation to see through the trappings of the world. Which brings me to another important piece of the Fool’s wisdom: “The cod-piece that will house/Before the head has any,/The head and he shall louse;/So beggars marry many./The man that makes his toe/What he his heart should make/Shall of a corn cry woe,/And turn his sleep to wake” (3.2.25). Here the Fool outlines the essential hierarchy of human nature. The material and sexual needs of a human being are aspects of his/her lower nature while the faculties of thought and love are of a higher nature. The Fool’s wisdom speaks to the Shakespearean theme of “seeming” versus “being”: the tragedy of the play arises out of mistaking seeming for being and this whirlpool of a theme turns around the Ring motif in all its manifestations.

Fortune, Fate, and Fools

There is much discussion in King Lear over the wheel of capricious Fortune, whom brings the high low and the low high on a whim. This certainly happens in the context in the play. Edmund rises from the fall of Edgar and Gloucester (3.3 22), Regan and Goneril benefit from the loss of their father’s authority, Oswald usurps Kent whom beat him mercilessly in the first act, and perhaps most fittingly the Fool becomes the wise man and the King becomes the fool. According to Kent (2.2 149) and Lear (3.2 58) their changes in fortune are the result of outside circumstances such as fate conspiring against them, as though Fortune is just spinning a wheel to victimize them. The fool knows better: “Fortune, that arrant whore/ Ne’er turns the key to the poor” (2.4 50-51) The rises and falls depicted in the play are the results of conscious efforts by actors such as Edmund and the mistakes of fools such as Lear (as the fool repeatedly points out). It seems that the play suggests that fortune and fate are but excuses for those “down on their luck” to absolve themselves of responsibility for being at the bottom of the wheel. Edmund, born a bastard, can be said to have a ‘legitimate’ excuse for his misfortune yet he seizes the day and usurps both his brother and father through his cunning alone. He is unwilling to just accept the cards that fate has dealt him and turns his draw into a winning hand. Regan and Goneril seize the “wheel” from Lear and orchestrate the falls of their father and his followers Kent and Gloucester. Even with Regan, Goneril, and Edmund firmly in control of fate, Edgar is able to rise up and seize it from them as well. Lear and Kent, complaining about Fortune’s fickle hand, sit on their asses pretending to put the “pelican daughters” (3.4 72) on trial. What the wisdom of the play (and of the fool) seems to suggest is that it is action (or the lack thereof) that makes real changes in fortune rather than passive obedience to fate. Edmund knows this; the fool knows this; Edgar comes to realize this later. Lear thinks himself “The natural fool of Fortune” (4.6 185) while raving mad. The question is whether Fortune is a supernatural force or the representation of the ‘players’ on the political stage who shape the lives of their subjects. Indeed one could say that every character in Shakespeare is subject to fate simply because they are scripted and must follow the lines they are given. Gloucester’s eyes will be clawed out because he is Gloucester, Lear will surrender his throne to his treacherous daughters because it sets the author’s plot in motion. The fortunes of these characters change only when the play is edited or adapted differently, so in a sense the whims of fortune are equivalent to the whims of the adaptor for a play. Are we merely players on a stage acting out the roles that fate has given us, or are we actors writing our own scripts?

King Lear - Laurence Olivier Act 2, Scene 2

I chose this video because I thought the performance by Laurence Olivier as King Lear was an excellent one. In the scene, we see Lear slowly losing his sanity and being disrespected by his daughters. The way he continuously raises and lowers his voice during the scene works very well. There are, however, several times during the scene where I'm not sure if I should be laughing for not. Maybe it's just me, but the way Olivier delivers some of the lines is very comedic, which is an interesting choice for the scene, but also effectively shows his sanity degrading.

A couple of questions:

Would the scene be more effective if it was more serious? Or maybe more comedic?

Should we be feeling pity for Lear during this scene?

Everybody is dead.

The finale of King Lear leads to a not-so-surprisingly morbid conclusion- Just about everyone dies. That seems pretty par for the course for Shakespeare, who likes to knock off characters left and right. Just when we think that we’re about to get a happy ending where the good guys can skip off into the sunset with the promise of a new tomorrow, good old Shakespeare brings in his literary machete to cut down a few more good souls and yank some tears from the audience. But why does he do this? What's the moral?

I think we can all deal with the “villains” of the play being killed, but why does Shakespeare choose to kill off Cordelia, or the heartbroken and insane Lear? The main plot of the story, the struggle between Lear and his daughters, as well as the subsequent battle for control of his kingdom, ends on a rather confusing note. The King is dead, as are the complete trio of his daughters, and not just the wicked ones who we’ve been waiting to see die for five acts, but the honest, pure Cordelia as well. The future is unclear; Albany, Edgar and Kent are understood to be taking over the government, but it’s difficult to put much thought into the future of the kingdom when the reader is still recovering from the sudden murder party that just took place.

Shakespeare’s choices in the final act of the play may seem random or unnecessary at first, but it is easy to see how the tragic end fits in with the common themes throughout the play of hopelessness and false justice. In King Lear, there is no good versus evil, at least not one in which there is a clear, triumphant winner, a champion who rides home to the parade and fanfare fit for the victor. Gloucester cries out in 4.1.37-38 “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; They kill us for sport.” A dark thought to consider, but the death and bloodshed that consumes the play can’t be chalked up to much more than chaos. Characters betray each other, only to be betrayed by others. Goneril and Regan give false affection to their father so as to usurp command of his empire only to end up killing each other over a common lover. The final battle scene leaves the vast majority of important characters in the plot dead and the kingdom in shambles.

Does Shakespeare implement justice into King Lear? Or is the lack of justice the very point of the tragedy? Shakespeare seems to be implying that not everything happens so as to fit into a grand battle of light and dark, good and evil, but rather sometimes things happen for no reason but the jealousy and greed inherent in people. It could be said that justice killed the two wicked sisters, but what of King Lear or Gloucester, both of whom sought to repent for their way, only finding truth in their failures (Lear in his madness comes to face what he has done to Cordelia, whereas Gloucester only comes to regret his treatment of Edgar after being led blind by his illegitimate son), and what of Cordelia, who had done wrong to nobody?

To me, this is the most tragic of Shakespeare’s plays simply for the fact that there is no true moral here, no governing theory to the madness that overtakes Lear’s empire. There is no God in King Lear to seek guidance from, or to fight in the name of. There are only foolish, jealous people, and Shakespeare shows us the terrors that fools can lead us to.

Death as a Surprise

Though this seems to be a recurring theme for most of the blog posts today, I really feel I need to say that I did not fully expect that ending for King Lear. I'd become accustomed to viewing history plays as a mixture of comedy and tragedy, and even though King Lear has been referred to as a tragedy as well as a history, I still wasn't expecting the usual tragic sort of ending where almost everyone important dies. I was expecting a lot of death, of course, even on the part of King Lear, who just seemed (to me at least) to have reached his breaking point, and wouldn't be long for this world. Goneril and Regan probably had to die as well, as conspirators and traitors, not only to the crown but to their family ties, and no villain such as these can have anything but a messy ending in Shakespeare. Gloucester's death was a tad more surprising, but not by much, considering how much he'd been going on and on about how life wasn't worth living, trying to kill himself, and asking Edgar to 'please leave him alone so he can DIE now'.

The death that really struck a heavy blow for me was that of Cordelia. She was the purity of the play, the redeeming angel come back to rescue her father from the villainy of her two sisters, redeeming her own bloodline in the process. Moreover, she was the Queen of France, a woman of power independent of her father's. Her death truly shocked me--she seemed too strong to be laid up and cut off like a sacrificial lamb. Yes, her faith and purity fit the part, but she had a strength of character that didn't lend itself to that sort of sacrificial image--the pure virgin, the vision of innocent charity--when she had a kingdom, a husband, and a power all her own. And she does not even get to die swiftly: there's a whole segment of that final scene in which the King, now going mad, swings back and forth between wailing that she's dead, and frantically discovering that she yet lives, if only someone could heal her. At the end of the play, I wasn't even 100% sure she was dead--was Lear imagining the signs of life, or the signs of death? Either seemed entirely possible. But they both fade away, leaving us with Kent and Edgar, and so I was forced to conclude that she was, either from the beginning or just now, deceased.

Still, that ending scene gives me pause, and makes me wonder what her true significance in the play was. Has her death truly redeemed anything? Is there enough even left of the kingdom or bloodline to be redeemed in the first place? Or is it simply meant to strike you as senseless, a last stab of Edmund's at a world that he sees as always out to get him? Is it only to lend to the tragic sense of the final act, or is there more to it than that? I don't believe I'll be getting answers to these questions, at least, anytime soon.

Identity and Nature in King Lear

After finishing King Lear, I’m sort of sad that so many of the characters were killed. Not only were the “bad guys” killed off, but others like Gloucester, Cordelia, and Lear. Not only were they killed, but both Gloucester and Lear died in moments that could have potentially been a happy time for them. Gloucester dies when Edgar reveals himself, and Lear dies when he thinks Cordelia might be beginning to breathe again. Despite being depressing, I thought that these events added to our discussion on the play supporting nihilism. Perhaps as readers we are supposed to look at the deaths of these characters and use it to propel a questioning of our own lives, and observe them to see if there actually is any meaning to them.

Something else I still find to be interesting after finishing the play is Lear’s regression or descent from King to an almost non-human being. I liked that when Lear gave his daughters his kingdom to rule, that he was basically removing himself from the position of king, and thus, a position of authority. I think we talked in class about how Lear was able to regain power over himself/his life through this regression to a more animalistic way of living. He removes the clothes which helped create his identity of a king, and formulates his own natural identity based on his connection to nature. The idea of natural also relates to Edmund, who is “natural” born, or illegitimate. Because of this Edmund is unable to get the position of power that he longs for, and has to resort to other, more shady ways of getting it.

Cordelia's Senseless End

As I neared the end of King Lear, I couldn’t help but notice that this play has been without a doubt the most dramatic, bleak and horribly gruesome of Shakespeare’s works that I have read thus far. Beginning with the scene in which Gloucester’s eyes are plucked out and stomped on by Regan and Cornwall and ending with the death of nearly every major character, King Lear is a play that ends on quite a depressing note. Though we are given a small amount of retribution with Albany and Edgar living past the end and reassuming their titles, part of me feels as though a few of the events at the end were a bit unnecessarily harsh, particular Cordelia’s death.

At the end of Act Four, when Cordelia returns to the forefront with her easy forgiveness of her father’s banishment, I honestly thought she might survive to the end despite my knowledge of many of Shakespeare’s tragedies. I couldn’t think of a reason why she would need to die, or how her death would somehow rebalance the outcome; and this being my first exposure to Lear, I thought my prediction was decently sound. Shakespeare even makes an effort to reaffirm Cordelia’s legitimacy by contrasting her treatment of her delirious father with how Regan and Goneril had previously addressed him: “Will’t please your highness to walk?” With just a simple phrase, she shows her father the respect her siblings have been denying him all along, and she does this regardless of how her father completely disregarded her. As a character, she is entirely grounded, and despite her ordeal, her priorities remain intact.

Even the way in which Cordelia is killed seems senseless to me. Following the scene in Act Three, one would think that Shakespeare would have little issue in staging another death, instead, Cordelia’s death occurs completely off-screen, as Edmund had ordered her hanged and his messenger was unable to stop the execution in time. By killing off such an inherently innocent character, I would think Shakespeare would want her death to be dramatic and obvious. Thankfully, we are at least given the moment where Lear walks on stage with his daughter in his arms, completely heartbroken and desperate for a glass to see if she breathes. I think the moment that was by far the most frustrating to me occurs right before Lear’s not-so-shocking death, in which he thinks that his daughter might still be alive: “Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, look there, look there!” For a moment, I thought she would breathe and survive, but she doesn’t, and I’m left feeling that her death was completely in vain.

The Life and Death of the Love Triangle

When reading the final few acts of “King Lear” what really struck me was the soap-opera-like love triangle of Edmund, Goneril and Regan. This triangle was so interesting and intriguing for many reasons and drove a lot of the action in the final moments of this play. Initially, I began by questioning Edmund’s intentions or motives for involving himself with these two women. There is the obvious reason, that he is simply a “womanizer,” but I really began to see him more as an opportunist/ business man. In order to further his career (to become King) he had to be romantically involved with either Goneril or Regan. Instead of just picking one of the women, Edmund, the smart man that he is, chose to involve himself with both. I think that this was a smart move on Edmund’s part because it pretty much guaranteed him a decent shot at becoming King.

The way that Edmund was able to manipulate and effectively make these two sisters fall in love with him was astonishing to me. For example in 5:1 when Edmund and Regan are talking, I had a really difficult time coming to any strict conclusion about which sister he preferred more, if any was the case. Also interesting was that Edmund does not explicitly deny that he slept with Goneril, when Regan asks him, yet Regan is still completely infatuated with him. I think Edmund’s ability to talk in a way in which he shows no preference to either sister speaks to his greater ability to manipulate pretty much EVERYONE that surrounds him. Edmund may not be the King of England, but I sure would consider him the King of manipulation. He is able to succeed in turning two sisters against one another and ultimately leads these two sisters to a tragic end.

The literal death of this love triangle occurs in the final act of the play. I think that the fact that Goneril killed herself but only after poisoning Regan truly shows the immense power that Edmund wielded over these two. I think Goneril killed Regan out of an act of extreme love for Edmund because she wanted to insure that Regan could never be with Edmund if she herself couldn’t be with him. Edmund even addresses this in 5.3:238-240 when he says “Yet Edmund was beloved. / The one the other poisoned for my sake, / And after slew herself.” This line is very interesting because Edmund puts the emphasis on “for my sake,” it shows that he himself really understood the power the he had over these two women.

The final display of Edmund’s power over these two women really left me thinking about what if everything Edmund wanted played out according to plan? What if Edmund became King? What would have happened to these two sisters? Although it’s quite an intriguing scenario I really don’t have a definitive answer. Part of me thinks it would have ended the same way that “King Lear” ended to begin with; with everyone dying. I think that because it was such a tangled web that Edmund weaved the only way that any of these characters would be able to escape was through death.

King Lear

After finishing King Lear I can honestly say that I didn’t expect the play to end the way that it did. Truthfully, as with many of Shakespeare’s plays, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I certainly didn’t expect so many deaths. I assumed earlier in the play that Lear would eventually die, especially because his sanity was obviously degrading throughout the play, but I didn’t expect him to simply drop dead from what can only be defined as shock.

I was also shocked that Cordelia was hanged; I had assumed that if one person were surely going to make it through the play, it would be Cordelia, because she was clearly one of the better characters of the play. When the deaths of Regan and Goneril were announced, however, I was neither shocked or upset and felt that they got what they deserved.

One of the things that bothered me during Act five was how quickly the battle was presented in 5.2. Obviously, Shakespeare didn’t want to spend much time on this and wanted to get to the end of the play, which is fine, but I felt it was almost comical how quickly it was portrayed. The directions have Edgar run off stage and then almost immediately run back on. I think a small aside from Gloucester would have worked well here and wouldn’t have made the battle seem so rushed.

Finally, I was also slightly confused as to who became the King at the end of the play. We never see anyone crowned and, unless I missed it, no one said that they would become King. All we know for sure is that Kent declines the position. Are we to assume that because Edgar doesn’t decline it, he has accepted the position? Personally, I’m a little surprised that Shakespeare didn’t include a crowning ceremony at the end of this play as he has done at the end of others, but I suppose that would’ve taken away from the tragic ending of the play.

All of a Sudden, I Love You

I love Shakespeare's tragedies. They're pretty good at setting up a finale that looks like everything will work out and then the ultimate blows are dealt and everyone is left crying. King Lear is probably the best example, with Goneril and Regan killing each other, Edmund being killed by his noble brother, and Lear and Cordelia being reunited. You want to believe that Cordelia will take car of her father and rule the land (and rule the land she does, in the original version of the legend. Shakespeare loves his unhappy endings, I suppose), but instead she is killed, leaving Lear to die of madness and a broken heart. This kind of reminds my of Othello, except Desdemona was already dead when Iago was (finally!) exposed.

What I love about the ending of Lear is what happens between Lear and Cordelia. Lear at this point is completely bonkers, but he is still able to recognize Cordelia for who she is: the pure, noble daughter. Or, does he? If the tearing of the clothes and the flower crown are any indication, Lear has just given up on sanity. Broken and destitute, he accepts the help from Cordelia and rests at France's camp. Is it just because she's a nice lady and looks like Cordelia? I think the text indicates that he does recognize her (stating "I think this lady to be my child Cordelia") but he still has issue with her ("I know you do not love me"). So, the first meeting indicates that Lear recognizes Cordelia, but his insanity keeps him from forgiving.

Jump to the end of the play: Lear and Cordelia are captured, prompting Lear to wish nothing more than to be with his daughter and "kneel down, and ask of thee [Cordelia] forgiveness." It seems that the insanity of war snaps Lear out of it, if only temporarily. After Cordelia is killed, Lear only sees the possibility of her still being alive. Kent tries to reveal himself to Lear, but Lear's babbling prompts Albany to state "He knows not what he says: and vain it is that we present us to him." I think that line is the key to the entire play. From the very beginning, it was completely vain to speak up to Lear, reason with Lear, bring Lear to different places, get Lear to recognize someone, and really get Lear to do anything. He threw his "love" around like he was throwing M&Ms, causing both Kent (or Caius) and Cordelia (in the final act) quite a bit of trouble. Cordelia, especially, is a good example of this insanity: after everything that happened in the play and Lear's unwillingness to forgive, all of a sudden, he loves Cordelia again. It's not because of everything Goneril and Regan did, it's because he thinks he recognizes her in his insane cloud. Only after Cordelia dies does Lear feel true sadness, and even then he is completely bat crazy.

I want to believe Lear knows as soon as he wakes up that Cordelia is there for him and loves him deeply. But, there is so much build up in the heath that I have to see the dramatic reunion as dramatic for Cordelia, and confusing for Lear. Death reveals all, and for Lear, Cordelia had to die so he could realize her purity. I suppose that's tragedy for ya.

-Sarah Bras

Did Edmund Come Around?

I have always been drawn to the points in stories, plays, etc where things come full circle, so of course I was drawn to Edmund's line in King Lear when he says "The wheel is come full circle! I am here"(5.3.17). According to our Shakespeare text, this is referring to fortune's wheel. Has Edmund gotten to where he wanted to be? This is also where it seems as though Albany, possibly Edmund, and Edgar forgive each other. I guess in a way, things did come full circle, but I can't help but notice how everyone (Goneril, Regan, Cordelia, and Lear) is dying. I guess in a way, fortune came back to bite them in the butt. As I finished the play, I began to look at the characters, specifically Edmund, too see if their lives or experiences had really come full circle. I believe that Edmund's life did come full circle. He started out as the bastard child and well, ended that way too in that they pretty much ignore his death and do not give him any recognition.
In Act 1 Scene 2, Edmund says "Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of customs and permit / The curiosity of nations to deprive me / For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines / Lag of a brother?"(1.2.2-6). Edmund wants something physical, like land ("Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land"(1.2.17)). I think he also wants recognition. He does not want to be seen as the bastard or lowlife son of Gloucester. He wants to be seen as the legitimate one. He wants to be recognized as that. Edmund wants what has been denied to him all his life. I know he goes on to attempt to get what he wants, but I feel like he just goes right back to bastard status.
In Act 5 Scene 3, when Albany hears that Edmund has died, he simply says "That's a trifle here"(5.3.309). Compared to everything else that's going on, Edmund's death is nothing important. It made me wonder, if he was not a bastard, would they have cared a little bit more? Or is it just because to many other characters have died / are dying? They've simply thrown Edmund to the side. I doubt he would have been very happy with that if he had been alive. He probably would have said the same things that he said in the beginning of the play about wanting recognition and wanting to be above his legitimate brother. He gets no recognition as he dies which is why I feel like he's gone back to where he started.

Cordelia and the Fool

I found it peculiar that the Cordelia disappears in Act I of the play, only to return in Act IV, while the Fool appears in Act II and III, and disappears once Cordelia returns. Simple coincidence? Maybe yes, maybe no.

When I first read Lear for English Lit. I, I was upset when the Fool disappeared in Act III because, for notable reasons, he was my favorite character. When I realized that the Fool and Cordelia were only in an act if the other was absent, I thought it was interesting so I researched it. I found that it is thought that during Shakespeare's time the actor who played Cordelia also played the Fool, so there's a more literal parallel. Also, the ending, when Lear says, "And my poor fool is hanged," (5.3, ln. 304) he is holding dead Cordelia in his arms; when the Fool departs from the play for good in Act 3.6, he says "And I'll go to bed at noon." (3.6, ln. 78). The Fool's line, metaphorically, could be saying that he'll take his life at noon, before the downfall, presumably, of King Lear. When Lear refers to Cordelia as a "fool", the footnote suggests that is relates to the Fool's disappearance in 3.6. I believe the Fool and Cordelia represent the faults of Lear throughout the play.

When the Fool leaves us in 3.6, he portrays a half-jokingly, resigned persona that deems Lear as almost hopeless. I see the Fool as another side of Cordelia, as the Fool delivers the more sarcastic, yet realistic lines to the King to remind him of his fault. When we see Lear next (without his Fool) he has gone completely mad. Without Cordelia or the Fool in his life, he has lost all hopelessness, and even though the Fool was constantly criticizing Lear when in his presence, it's almost as if King Lear had a dependency on the Fool, and when he left that's when his insanity ensued.

Also, being that both the Fool and Cordelia are the two characters who represent "truth", it could be said that their deaths add to the theme of hopelessness and despair that this tragedy projects. When they die, as does truth, and as the Fool's disappears, it seems to foreshadow to Lear that he is too late: by the time he realizes the truth, Cordelia is dead.