Monday, November 4, 2013
"Fortune . . . Turn Thy Wheel"
King Lear is a play in which many of the major characters undergo suffering -- everything from exile, imprisonment, madness, filial ingratitude, madness, mutilation, despair, to extreme physical deprivation. Yet , at the same time, many of these same characters have ideas about the purpose and limits of suffering. What are some of the those ideas? How are they related to the idea of a cosmic moral order, that idea that the world is just if we could only discover its deeper meaning? How is it related to the ideas about moral order expressed in other plays, such as Richard III or the Merchant of Venice? Do the events of the play endorse or undermine these ideas? What is this play telling us about suffering?
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A moral order is highly prevalent within King Lear and appears to mainly harm those who have done something questionable. The characters of the play do not seem actively aware of a moral order until it is already too late. King Lear begins the play by giving his daughters Goneril and Regan each half of his kingdom and expects them to take care of him in his old age. King Lear has lead in a successful life up to this point, but his decision leads to a turn of fate. Lear gets kicked out of his former castle and has to spend the night out in a thunderstorm where he starts to loose his sanity. With the help of Edgar, his madness consumes him leaving him a shell of the man that he used to be. On the other hand, Edgar, who flees his father after being falsely accused by his brother, pretends to be mad. In order to secure his safety he has to lose everything he has and assumes the identity of Poor Tom. Edgar has done nothing wrong and so he maintains the potential to reclaim what he one had. Unlike Lear, Edgar’s fate follows a cyclical pattern indicating that with the correct choices he could return to the top. Gloucester’s fate is more of a cliff rather than a polygon. Gloucester is tricked into believing that Edgar was evil and then aids the banished king. For his crimes he looses his eyes and is left in such a state that, “the heavens’/ plagues/ have humbled to all strokes (4.1.73-5). Gloucester is left without his sons, position, and sight. Unlike Shakespeare’s other plays Richard III or The Merchant of Venice, fate does not follow one distinct pattern, but alternates based off the crimes of the individual person. In King Lear, people lose everything and their suffering only grows more and more grotesque.
ReplyDeleteIn King Lear many of the characters share a belief about the wheel of fate, and how things will always get better, this concept however seems to fall apart when the moral order of the world is upset by the actions of men. The wheel of fate is, at this time disrupted by the actions of both king Lear and his daughter’s who’s “filial ingratitude” after Lear split his kingdom among the two of them disrupts the natural order of things(3.4.17). Edgar unfortunately is indeed affected by this change in the natural order, while he believes himself “To be worst, The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune, Stands still in Esperance, lives not in fear. The lamentable change is from the best”(4.1.2-5). He believes that he is at the bottom of the metaphorical wheel of fortune where his situation cannot become more dire, fate however has a surprise for him, as he realizes his father has been mutilated, his eyes torn out. Shockingly, Edgars circumstances have gone from worst, to something worse than worst. This just as it does to several other characters ruins his faith in the wheel of fortune that suggests that if things are the worst they could possibly be they can only get better. This prompts him to say “Oh gods who is’t that can say, ‘I am at the worst’ the worse I ever was”(4.1.27-28). The disregard of the natural order of familial loyalty in this play has clearly had a profound effect on the world around the characters as their beliefs about the wheel of fate continue to crumble around them.
ReplyDeleteIn King Lear moral order is definitely shown throughout the play, but the characters do not always see this. For example, towards the beginning of the play, King Lear disinherits Cordelia and banishes her from his kingdom because he does not feel like she loves him enough. Then he gives each of his daughters, Goneril and Regan, each half of the kingdom. This only turns towards the worse. He gets kicked out of the kingdom and goes on a downward spiral of insanity. Since Lear was so consumed with selfishness and materialness, he forgot what was really important. So karma came and bit him in the butt and he lost everything, or so he thought. Even though Lear did treat Cordelia poorly and banished her, she still cared for him.
ReplyDelete"O, my dear father, restoration hang
Thy medicine on my kips, and let this kiss
Repair those violent harms that my two sisters
Have in thy reverence made"(4.7.31-34).
Even though Lear made poor choices and suffered profusely for it, Cordelia was still there for him. He did not deserve her love, but because of the good person she is, she saved him. What the play is telling us about suffering is that if you do bad things, or mess up, you probably will suffer. But there are still good characters willing to look pass the hiccups and do nice things, just because it is the right thing to do.
In King Lear, Shakespeare makes some arguments that humans will never know the true meaning of suffering, and that all that we can do is just guess and any given moment. This is best shown with the blind Gloucester and Edgar. Gloucester wants to commit suicide because he has decided that his suffering has made his life not worth living. Gloucester says, “This world I do renounce, and in your sights/Shake patiently my great affliction off.” 4.6.46-7. Gloucester is kneeling off of what he thinks is a cliff and says his “final words”. He says that he cannot stand this world anymore and so he must kill himself. Gloucester falls over and thinks that he has just fell down a cliff, and now, when Edgar provokes him, Gloucester has a very different mindset. Gloucester says now, “Henceforth I’ll bear/Affliction till it do cry out itself/’Enough, enough!’ and die.” 4.6.93-5. Gloucester now has a totally different mindset. He now is ready to take on this affliction until he can’t take it anymore.. Gloucester goes from thinking that suffering isn’t worth living through when he decides to kill himself, but when he realizes that he couldn’t, he decided to make suffering something to live through. Through this series of events, Shakespeare may be telling us that with a blink of an eye, we humans change our mind of what suffering means depending on what is convenient at the time.
ReplyDeleteThe moral order in King Lear is quite similar to Richard III because those on top of the great chain of being tend to have the lowest morality and actually suffer the most in the end. It is interesting in King Lear though that it is actually taken a step further because Shakespeare adds Lear’s realization that he can be a better person. This idea is clear as he says, “O, I have ta’en / too little care of this” (3.4.38-9). Here Lear is talking about the poor people in his kingdom and how he hasn’t noticed them and after having seen them he feels he should do something about it. In Richard III Richard suffers the most at the end of the play when he dies but it is too late. Here with Lear he is given the chance to change before it is too late. I think that the idea of suffering is almost like a way of penance that someone must go through to see things clearly. It reminds me of how reconciliation was performed in the earlier days of Christianity; one was covered in ash and then would wait until it was “cleared” away. You could actually say that his speech telling the gods to “strike flat the think rotundity o’ th’ world” (3.2.9) is Lear wanting a new start. Although it is done in a moment of anger I think Lear wants everything that has just happened to rewind so that he can make some changes.
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