Shakespeare’s Representations of Misogyny in King Lear
by Joanna Schneider
In William Shakespeare’s King Lear, the three daughters of the king each represent a different kind of woman that existed during the Elizabethan era. The manner in which they are portrayed by Shakespeare suggests strong misogyny within the play. The relationships that Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril develop with the dominant male figures in their lives are evidence of this underlying misogynistic tone; Cordelia’s dysfunctional relationship with her father, Regan’s power over Cornwall, and Goneril’s infidelity to Albany are all important factors in determining Shakespeare’s interpreted weaknesses of each sister. Shakespeare’s illustrations of Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril as well as the punishments that they receive as a result of their actions indicate an inherently misogynistic tone in King Lear.
During the time that Shakespeare lived, social roles were undoubtedly different, often provoking the question of whether Shakespeare was a misogynist or a follower of Elizabethan beliefs. In the book The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, it is highlighted that Shakespearean tragedy makes female characters more dull. Lenz, Greene, and Neely write “In Shakespearean comedy, it is true, the heroine dominates; in Shakespearean tragedy, she most emphatically does not. Moreover, the women in tragedy seem to split into two basic types: victims or monsters, ‘good’ or ‘evil’” (18). King Lear is a tragic play in which most of the protagonists die. Cordelia, Regan, and Goneril all reach their untimely deaths before the end of the play as a result of their own actions. Death becomes a punishment for the sins of the sisters, and it is easier for Shakespeare to kill these characters, because the audience has not become attached to them. As implied by the Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare, in Shakespearean tragedy, the female characters are less important and therefore more two dimensional. Even Cordelia, who evokes some empathy from the audience in Act 1, lacks the dimension of Edmund, Gloucester, or Lear.
Cordelia’s disobedience toward her father and her subsequent death are clear depictions of Shakespeare’s misogyny, because he wanted to display the punishment that she deserved. Cordelia had always been Lear’s favorite daughter, but when she finally placed enough confidence in him to tell him the truth about her love for him, he betrayed her. She wanted to be able to love her father as much as her sisters said they did, but she also did not want to lie. She says, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave/My heart into my mouth: I Love your Majesty/ According to my bond; no more no less” (I, i, 96-99). She has accepted that she is incapable of loving her father more and she respects him enough not to lie. While Regan and Goneril decide to lie to Lear, Cordelia is the one punished with death at the end of the play for her initial lack of respect toward her father. Cordelia makes no other mistakes during the play as she is all but forgotten until her death. Shakespeare illustrates Lear as a distraught father who expected more of his daughter in an attempt to evoke empathy for a weak old man. It is Cordelia for whom the reader is sympathetic though; Shakespeare tries to portray Lear as a more important character than Cordelia through pathos. It is evident that he holds his male protagonists in higher esteem.
Shakespeare’s representation of Regan in King Lear is not only another classic example of a Shakespearean villain, but it also shows his blatant mistrust of women. Regan belittles Cornwall by taking a dominant role in the relationship. By default, Cornwall becomes the submissive partner, because Regan holds the wealth and power. In the marriage between the two, Cornwall is nothing but an assistant to Regan. When she says, “Give me thy sword.—A peasant stand up thus? (takes sword, runs at FIRST SERVANT behind, and kills him)” (III, vii, 81-83), it becomes clear that Regan has almost completely drained Cornwall of his power. Further, Shakespeare’s hatred of women is exemplified through the servants’ hatred of Regan. Her ability to overpower Cornwall was Shakespeare’s way of illustrating her as a monster. The third servant voices Shakespeare’s woes when he says, “If she live long, And in the end meet the old course of death,/Women will all turn monsters” (III, vii, 106-108).
Lastly, Goneril’s dishonest relationship with her husband, Albany, leads to her portrayal as a harsh, cold personality, and Shakespeare believes her to be deserving of death for her actions. To Goneril, it seems as though she has done everything correctly; she lied to her father so as not to hurt his feelings while also gaining her portion of Lear’s wealth. She remains loyal to her husband even though she is unfaithful in her desire for Edmund, and she allows her husband to assert dominance. The reader may not be able to understand why Goneril is driven to be unfaithful. Albany shows sympathy for the very act that Cornwall was dying to commit — gouging out Gloucester’s eyes. He says “But O poor Gloucester! Lost he his other eye?” (IV, ii, 91-92). He seems to portray Goneril as unfeeling and hard. This trait consequently led to her lack of control in her own life. Shakespeare’s misogyny is represented here because he kills Goneril at the end of the play as a punishment for her weakness and lack of control.
All in all, it is clear that each of Lear’s three daughters represents another reason for Shakespeare’s antagonistic view of women. Cordelia’s initial truthfulness could have been seen as a valiant attempt to gain respect, but Shakespeare wrote it as disrespect toward Lear. Similarly, Regan’s ability to gain control in a relationship where she was destined to be subservient shows extreme power on her part, but was demonstrated as a monstrous takedown of Cornwall. Finally, Goneril’s inability to quell her desires results in the most painful death of all. Her inability to muster the strength that Regan had makes her a weak character in Shakespeare’s eyes, but Regan’s strength was also a crime. The characteristics of the female characters and the consequences they deal with as a result in King Lear are a strong testament to Shakespeare’s evident misogyny.
WORKS CITED
Lenz, Carolyn Ruth Swift, Gayle Greene, and Carol Thomas Neely. The Woman’s Part: Feminist Criticism of Shakespeare. Urbana: University of Illinois, 1983. Print.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia A. LaMar. New York: Washington Square, 1957. Print.
The Good People of King Lear
by Caroline Cooke
People like to take comfort in the belief that “what goes around comes around.” The deplorable actions of morally bankrupt men will surely come back to haunt them. Conversely, if you live your life by the rules and exude nothing but goodness you will be rewarded. One thinks life has to work that way, because if it did not it would be too unfair. As it is often pointed out, however, life’s not fair, and nowhere is this more apparent than in Shakespeare’s King Lear. At the bitter end of the story all but three of the characters are dead. At this point Albany says “All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deserving” (5.3.301–303). With so many of the other characters laying lifeless on the stage or off it, it seems laughable to say that each and every person deserved their death. While no one is lamenting over the loss of the play’s villains, Regan, Goneril, and Edmund, or even the elderly and vaguely unhinged namesake of the play, it cannot be argued that the death of the fair, honest Cordelia was merited. King Lear serves to teach us that justices and injustices occur side by side, and furthermore that the very natures of good and evil are undefined.
The bright, shining force of pure goodness throughout play is King Lear’s youngest daughter Cordelia. She seems to possess every virtue: beauty, loyalty, kindness, and above all honesty. However, this is the cause of the first terrible injustice inflicted upon her when Lear banishes her for refusing to admit a type of love for him which she does not have. Lear leaves her not just without a dowry, but without his blessing and without his love. Regardless of this betrayal, the second Cordelia marries the king of France she tries to maintain the welfare of her father by laying siege to Dover. The result of this faithful act is her execution. After she dies Lear says “And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life! / Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all?” (5.3). Though Cordelia consistently shows the most virtue, it is she who ends up the fool, and it is she who dies an unmerited death. She is so contrasted by her scheming sisters Goneril and Regan, that is is easy to picture Cordelia is the pinnacle of goodness and her sisters the personifications of evil. The elder sisters only qualities are a seemingly endless greed and ambition, so their mutual destruction in the final act is quite satisfying. Still, three women lay dead by the end; the good and the bad end up in the same place.
The story of Edmund and Gloucester is a more ambiguous case. From the opening of the play it is plain to see how badly Edmund is treated by Gloucester due to his being a bastard child. There is an entire soliloquy in the second scene of the first act in which he laments his status and first tells of his plot to turn his father against his legitimate brother Edgar. One cannot help but feel sympathetic to his plight. Being cast aside and looked down upon simply due to the circumstances of one’s birth is certainly an injustice. Still, Edmund goes on to say, “when we are sick in fortune,–often the surfeit / of our own behavior,–we make guilty of our / disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars: as / if we were villains by necessity; fools by / heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and / treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, / liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of / planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, / by a divine thrusting on: an admirable evasion / of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish / disposition to the charge of a star!” (1.2). It is odd that he gains sympathy for the misfortunes of his fate and then inveighs against the very idea in the same scene. This is also heavily contrasted by what Gloucester says in the fourth act, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport.” (4.1). Gloucester’s greatest trespasses are his accordance with society with regards to his illegitimate son and how easily he is deceived and turned against Edgar. In the cases of both Edmund and Gloucester, the question of their morality becomes dependent on whether their actions were justified by their situations, and if the stars and gods are really to blame. Regardless, both men end up dead. Gloucester is also blinded for his loyalty to Lear, and dies of a combination of despair and deep emotional turmoil within himself. The only possible justification for his death is how terrible a father he was. It is far easier to justify the death of Edmund at the hand of the brother he wronged, for Edmund is clearly a villain in this story. Nonetheless, it is similarly easy to sympathize with a man born with the world stacked against him. Justice is dubious in this case.
What people deserve is subjective. Humans have a funny way of justifying any action, no matter how heinous. Surely the audience feels that Edgar was not wrong to kill Edmund in a duel given the abominable way he had been treated, but when the situation is looked at objectively it is still murder. Even King Lear, the man whose error in judgement caused his every grievance believed himself to be “a man / More sinn’d against than sinning.” (3.2). And however one may feel about Lear, by the end of the play he is just an old man whose children have all died and whose sanity is in shreds. Shakespeare’s King Lear is not simply a tale of betrayal or loyalty, it is one that tests our notions of both morality and justice. It questions whether morality is actually worth the trouble and if justice even really exists.
WORKS CITED
Abdallah, Mahmoud. “Assiut English Language Learning Community.” : Theme of Justice and Injustice in King Lear. Assiut University College of Education, 04 Apr. 2010. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of King Lear. New York: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1993. Print.
What does Shakespeare imply about family and family roles in King Lear?
by Noelle Ike
While Shakespeare’s “King Lear” is a tragedy seemingly based on the issues surrounding power, loyalty, and justice, it is the idea of a family and its relationships, particularly the one between a father and his children, which serve as the groundwork for the play. King Lear is as much a king to Britain as he is the patriarch to his family. His intention to fairly divide his kingdom between his daughter’s backfires, as it quickly unravels into a family feud, which in this case, means war. While this may seem like enough drama for a play, Shakespeare weaves in the storyline of Gloucester and his sons, which only further the idea that King Lear is essentially a family tragedy. The roles he casts to certain members of the family give us insight to the ways Shakespeare viewed family, and to the way families were expected to function in Elizabethan England.
In the first act, Lear creates a test for his daughters to see who loves him most. Although he expects Cordelia’s excessive flattery, just as her sisters had presented, she answers him by saying, “That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry half my love with him, half my care and duty” (I,i,110). While she is only following the custom of society, the idea that a married woman should divide her love equally to her husband and father, Lear is infuriated and disinherits her. His failure to realize that Cordelia is only following the natural law of family roles sets in motion the revenge, competition, and selfishness of Regan and Goneril. Shakespeare is clear in his opinion that Lear’s poor judgement, whether by old age or character, in disregarding the established structure of family roles, is what sets off the entire series of events.
The situation is mirrored in the first scenes involving the Earl of Gloucester and his sons Edgar and Edmund. We learn in the first scene that Edmund is a bastard child, and Edgar’s half brother. He had been away up until recently, as there is nothing for him in Britain, as an illegitimate son. He soon reveals himself as conspiring against his father and half brother, angry by always being labeled as less when he believes he is just as worthy as his brother. Gloucester disregards the natural order of family when he is quick to call Edgar, the son he claims to love, an “unnatural, detested, brutal villain…Worse than brutish” (I,ii,80). In believing Edmund who had forged the letter of conspiracy from Edgar, Gloucester mirrors the mistake we have just witnessed Lear make with Cordelia. In making hasty decisions about the characters of their children, they fail to recognize the innate loyalty in family and pay the consequences.
Aristotle instructs us in the “Poetics” that the best tragedies are those in which family members harming one another, as opposed to strangers or enemies, arouse pity and fear. Shakespeare used this idea, set forth many years before his time, and applied it to the Elizabethan structure of family and government, bringing forth a play that encompasses the elements of a tragedy and appeals to the people living in Britain at the time. Since Edmund was both the youngest son and born out of wedlock, he inherited nothing from his father, the Earl of Gloucester. As a society that revolved around hierarchy, both in government and in the family, Shakespeare illustrated to the audience that in abandoning the natural structure of things, everything falls apart.
WORKS CITED
Aristotle, and Gerald Frank Else. Aristotle: Poetics. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan, 1967. Print.
Johnston, Ian. “Lecture on King Lear.” Lecture on King Lear. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Upton Hall, Jane. “09.03.07: Single Parenting and Family Dynamics Then and Now: King Lear.” 09.03.07: Single Parenting and Family Dynamics Then and Now: King Lear. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
“King Lear By William Shakespeare About King Lear.” About King Lear. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
“King Lear Engaging with the Play: Themes.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 22 Jan. 2014.
Veiled Veracity
by Victoria Testa
Enter reader [in disguise]. Eyes veiled in a color that is not your own as they graze the words on this page. A smudged face resides where your pristine pores used to be. This is not a game or holiday of trickery, but a new persona forced upon you by disloyalty and deceit. With all this turmoil and strife, it is no wonder that Shakespeare’s characters must often hide their true intentions and often themselves. Through the characters of Edgar, Cordelia, and the Fool, Shakespeare highlights that a character’s truths must be consistent with the nature of their disguise.
Edgar’s disguise underscores that dishonesty about one’s physical appearance does not necessarily contribute to false representation of one’s own beliefs. After Edmund convinces Gloucester of Edgars (completely contrived) murderous plot, Edgar is forced to go into hiding in order to avoid persecution. Yet, he states, “Whilest I may escape, I will preserve myself”(II.iii.5). Thus, he endeavors to maintain his honest disposition even as he disowns his name (“‘Edgar’ I nothing am”(II.iii.21)) and morphs into Poor Tom, a madman and a beggar who soon befriends Lear. In his ramblings, Edgar lauds Lear with words of honest advice. “Obey thy parents, keep thy word’s justice”(III.iv.86-87). His first piece of advice seems geared to what Lear wants to hear in the face of recent events: that obeying one’s parents is paramount. Edgar’s ramblings as Poor Tom almost seem to ring more true in his state as a madman. In this persona, Edgar is not expected to hide behind courtly etiquette and is thus allowed to speak entirely uncensored. Moreover, Edgar’s use of the imperative structure seems to command both Lear and all of Lear’s readers to see the value of honesty. In the play’s tragic finale, Edgar is one of the only two characters still alive, arguably because, “All those who died disobeyed the ‘natural’ social order, whereas both Edgar and Albany acted in accordance with it”(Doncaster). Despite his momentarily masked persona, Edgar never fails to maintain a grounded sense of veracity to both his true nature and others. This sentiment is especially underscored by Edgar’s final command to the audience, “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say”(V.iii.393). This eloquently juxtaposed statement highlights the value of honest living, a quality that Edgar refuses to compromise regardless of his disguised figure.
Although Cordelia’s capacity for truthfulness is clear at her introduction, she continues in her crusade for honesty in the form of Lear’s beloved Fool. It has been speculated as early as 1894 “that the parts of Cordelia and the Fool in King Lear were written for the same boy actor”(Stroup). When Cordelia is asked of her affection for her father, she simply responds with, “Nothing, my lord”(I.i.96) with “nothing” then repeated by a disbelieving Lear. With this gross filial disloyalty, the King swiftly disowns and banishes Cordelia to France. “The Fool appears 357 lines later”(Stroup) using a phrase similar to that of Cordelia. Of Lear, the Fool proclaims, “I am better than thou art now. I am a Fool. Thou art nothing”(I.iv.198). These short but loaded statements suggest that if there is a “now”, then there must be a before, possibly the time when Cordelia was outcast. Moreover, this is the second time that Lear has received the title of “nothing” within one act. However, this time, unlike with Cordelia, Lear pays little attention to this insult and goes so far as to make the Fool, who continues to openly mock him throughout the play, one of the his closest confidants. The disguise deepens, because “between Cordelia’s exit and the Fool’s entry the same number of lines are spoken as between the Fool’s final exit and Cordelia’s re-entry” (Stroup), perhaps giving the young actor time to change and re-dress. Lastly, at Cordelia’s death, Lear exclaims, “My poor fool is hanged”(V.iii.369). According to the Folger’s explanation, “poor fool” is most likely a pet name or term of endearment for Cordelia. This final remark solidifies the connection between Cordelia and the Fool. It seems as though Cordelia’s truthfulness as displayed in the beginning of the show is continued and strengthened by the disguise of the Fool. Cordelia would never be able to insult her father the way the Fool does as it would severely alter the societal expectation of a daughter to be obedient to her father. Yet, disguised as the Fool, not only are the bounds of father-daughter relations disintegrated but the title and nature of his character allows him to insult with little fear of reprecaution. Thus, the disguise under which the truth is told plays a paramount role in whether or not it will be believed.
Shakespeare’s King Lear underscores that a disguise can sometimes afford you the freedom of honesty without the fear of rebuke. The candidness of Edgar, Cordelia, and the Fool affords a momentary escape from the corruption of Lear’s world. Yet, their brief respite from their true nature does not save the characters themselves from demise as two of the three characters fall victim in the tragic end. Thus, Shakespeare asserts that the morality of a character or the disguise they don will not save them from fate at the hands of a cruel world, no matter how altered their countenance. Exeunt [disguise wisely].
WORKS CITED
Doncaster, Sarah. “Representations of Nature in King Lear.” Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. Web. 7 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. New York: Folger Library, 1993. Print.
Stroup, Thomas B. “Cordelia and the Fool.” Shakespeare Quarterly 12.2 (1961): n. pag. JStor. Folger Shakespeare Library. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
The Substantial Effects of Parent-Child Relationships in King Lear
by Jared Eckman
Shakespeare’s King Lear explores the relationships between children and their parents and consequently the extensive effects that the former have on the latter. The play begins after the eponymous character and Gloucester have reached old age, and they have thus already developed character traits the origins of which the audience can merely surmise. However, the medium through which the audience is able to see these traits is their relationships with their children. The relationships between the children of Lear and Gloucester and their respective father change as the play moves forward, and the traits displayed by the men are consequently modified. While Lear and Gloucester are initially presented foolish and irrational, they develop more compassion and decency after having been betrayed by the children in whom they mistakenly placed their trust. Their changes in character are engendered by their changing relationships with their children.
During the first scene of the play, the reader gets a glimpse of the irrationality and callousness of King Lear. In order to secure an inheritance, his two eldest daughters, Goneril and Regan, offered him dishonest and crafted professions of love, which Lear was unable to see through and accepted with deep gratification. However, he was dissatisfied with his youngest daughter’s earnest explanation of her strong yet appropriate love for him. He subsequently stripped Cordelia of her inheritance, after stating “Mend your speech a little, lest you may mar your fortunes” (1.1.103-104) and her refusal to do so. Evidently, Lear mistook Goneril and Regan’s feigned performance for genuine love and Cordelia’s honesty for disobedience. In this first scene, Lear’s relationships with his children establish him as a blind fool who is unable to feel true compassion for Cordelia. This scene is Lear’s introduction to the audience, and it establishes the traits that are subsequently associated with his character. Therefore, his actions toward his daughters in this scene constitute the first glimpse that one has of Lear and his characteristics.
In addition, Lear’s actions toward and relationship with his daughters in the scene ultimately lead to his downfall. As Jane Upton Hall noted in “Single Parenting and Family Dynamics Then and Now: King Lear”, “Lear’s…disowning of Cordelia sets the tragedy in motion”. Hall’s assertion reveals that Cordelia and her sisters brought out her father’s fatal flaw, which was his inability to see the true character of his daughters. His trust of Goneril and Regan, and by extension their acquisition of power, eventually lead to his banishment and unstable state. Therefore, his relationships with his daughters in this scene give rise to the tragedy that ensues.
Similarly to Lear, Gloucester is first presented as a credulous and irrational man. The reader associates these traits with him as a direct result of his interactions with his two sons, Edgar and Edmund. In several instances, he misidentifies Edgar as the son who is plotting against him while believing that the true antagonist, Edmund, is his savior. Upon finding Edmund with a letter supposedly written by Edgar but truly by Edmund, Gloucester believes the lie that it was penned by the former. He condemns his more ethical son as a “Villain…abhorred villain!” (1.2.80). This reaction demonstrated Gloucester’s ignorance in regards to which of his sons was conspiring against him. During Act 2 Scene 1, he erroneously believes that Edmund was wounded while trying to defend him from Edgar. His rather senile and oblivious nature was therefore demonstrated through his interactions with Edmund and Edgar. Gloucester’s counterpart, King Lear, experiences a transformation that rids him of the obliviousness that Gloucester possessed.
Lear’s changing relationship with his children results in a changing personality. After having been kicked out by Goneril and Regan during Act 2 Scene 4, he becomes more compassionate to others. Upon seeing a man out in the violent storm, he remarked, “Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, that bid the pelting of the pitless storm” (3.4.32-33). This newfound compassion was displayed after severe actions by his children. When he had control over them, he was imperceptive and irrational. Now, relegation by his daughters instills empathy in him. Jane Upton Hall stated that “When [Lear] reaches the state of being a poor outcast after Goneril and Regan send him away, he better understands the plight he cast upon Cordelia”. Lear’s dramatic personality shift is therefore irrefutably attributable to his relationships with his daughters, since his banishment by Regan and Goneril set this change in motion and his acknowledgement of his wrongdoings toward Cordelia renders him more empathetic. Lear’s foil, Gloucester, also went through such a change.
Gloucester experienced a similar transformation to that of Lear, as his discovery of Edmund’s true diabolical nature resulted in a sagacity and clear-sightedness that was absent even when he possessed physical vision. Commenting on his past actions, specifically those relating to his son Edgar, Gloucester stated “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ‘tis seen, our means secure us, and our mere defects prove our commodities. Oh! Dear son Edgar, the food of thy abused father’s wrath; might I but live to see thee in my touch, I’d say I had eyes again” (4.1.18-24). This humble, repentant quote reveals Gloucester’s newfound humility following his overturned relationship with Edmund. His principal regret is his unjust and misdirected cruelty toward Edgar, the son whom he had mistakenly labeled a villain. The change in personality was brought on by a change in his relationship with his son, for Edgar’s betrayal of Gloucester resulted in the latter’s blindness which in turn led to his figurative vision.
In King Lear, the children of the two principal fathers bring out the best and worst in the earl and king. Both King Lear and Gloucester are initially presented as oblivious and foolish, but their characteristics morph as their relationships with their children evolve. Alterations in how Lear and Gloucester feel toward them are followed by immediate changes in their respective demeanor. Newfound empathy and compassion are instilled in the two men following betrayal by their sons and daughters and remorse for actions committed towards them. Parent-child relationships dominate the play and consequently lead to dramatic character transformations and the progression of the plot.
WORKS CITED
Hall, Jane Upton. “09.03.07: Single Parenting and Family Dynamics Then and Now:
King Lear.” 09.03.07: Single Parenting and Family Dynamics Then and Now:
King Lear. Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute, 03 Sept. 2007. Web. 21 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of King
Lear. New York: Washington Square, 1993. Print.