External Powers Over Internal Conflicts
Lydia Saylor
When we are angry, we often blame something or someone foreign to the situation for the source of our discontent. We exclaim things like, “God, why have you done this to me?”. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, however, we are placed in the unfamiliar pre-Christian world, where this phrase instead might be, “Why have the stars aligned against me?”. The themes of nature and astrology emerge when the characters are facing some kind of internal struggle. The stars are a scapegoat for Edmund’s insecurities, and the storm is the symbol of Lear’s anger and frustration.
One of the most apparent internal psychological struggles is that of Edmund, who is unhappy with his being born a bastard. His dissatisfaction with his inherited rank in society eventually drives him to plot against his legitimate brother by turning their father against him. During his soliloquy in which he reveals this plan, he admits that he is aware of his villainous character. He blames this trait on his fate and the pure chance of the circumstance of his birth.
My
father compounded with my mother under the
dragon’s tail; and my nativity was under Ursa
major; so that it follows, I am rough and
lecherous. Tut, I should have been that I am,
had the maidenliest star in the firmament
twinkled on my bastardizing.
(I.ii.135-140)
Because he his angry, rather than taking responsibility for his planned actions, he insists that his “rough and lecherous” temperament is solely a result of the unluckiness of the constellations. Edmund’s being a bastard is a human-constructed social label, one he feels is undeserved and unjust. His way of providing an explanation for this perpetual punishment is to place it in the context of the inexplicable, eternal, and unchanging force that is nature (Doncaster 2).
Similar to the importance of astrology is the growth of the storm. The storm roars on when Lear is suffering from pain and sorrow at the realization of the unraveling of his family and mental state. When Lear is vulnerable out in the torrential rain, he curses his daughters for their disloyalty.
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join’d
Your high engender’d battles ‘gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! ’tis foul!
(III.ii.16-26)
Lear attempts to explain the actions of his daughters but is lost in confusion. He realizes that while the raging storm punishes him, the behaviors of Regan and Goneril punish him even more deeply because he has loved, fathered, and sacrificed his power for them. Lear’s rage brings on the storm, and the storm provides an outlet for him to recognize his rage.
The internal conflicts of the characters of King Lear are identified and realized by the characters themselves through the contemplation of nature. In the pre-Christian world of King Lear, these forces of nature are all-powerful and determine fate. While sometimes nature is a rationalization for these conflicts, it is also the incitement for them.
WORKS CITED
Doncaster, Sarah. “Representations of Nature in King Lear.” Shakespeare Online. N.p., 20 Aug. 2000. Web. 21 Jan. 2014. < http://www.shakespeare-online.com/essays/ learandnature2.html>.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1993. Print.
The Meaning of Disguise in King Lear
Kimberly Barrios
Edgar isn’t just one character, but within Edgar lies Tom; just as Edmund is two-faced. When I think of disguise I don’t always picture a person wearing an actual mask but sometimes they are those that aren’t themselves in front of certain people. We as the audience or readers of King Lear witness the characters’ various motives throughout the play which are often power and status. Why do the good ones such as Edgar and Cordelia suffer? They suffer because of the unraveling of evil intentions of those characters in disguise.
From the very beginning we encounter Cordelia and her sisters along with King Lear. Cordelia is genuinely a loyal daughter to King Lear. When the time comes for Lear to choose who will become the next heir, he chooses Regan and Goneril and he banishes Cordelia.This is where disguise starts to come into play. Both Goneril and Regan are as horrible as Edmund. Cordelia and Edgar are similar because they both posses such good character.
The only difference between Cordelia and Edgar is Edgar’s other half, Tom the beggar. Cordelia is one of the few characters in King Lear that is not in disguise at all.
Whiles I may ‘scape, I will preserve myself, and am
Bethought to take the basest and most
Poorest shape that ever penury in contempt of man
Brought near to beast. My face I’ll grime with the filth,
Blanket my loins, elf all my hairs in knots,
And with presented nakedness outface
The winds and persecutions of the sky.
The country gives me proof and precedent
Of Bedlam beggars who with roaring voices
Strike in their numbed and mortified arms
Pins, wooden pricks, nails, springs of rosemary,
And, with this horrible object, from low farms,
Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills,
Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers,
Enforce their clarity. “Poor Turlygod! Poor Tom!”
That’s something yet. “Edgar” I nothing am.
(II.iii.1-21)
Kent, too, is a character in disguise. Kent is disguised as “Caius”, a peasant. Lear banished Kent and he therefore created this other character to continue to serve lear. Caius is very outspoken so he gets himself into a lot of trouble. I love these characters because it’s as if the original characters like Edgar and Kent are starting their lives over again. They may not be in the highest rank and they aren’t quite themselves, but they both look to be accepted in a way. I think that disguising themselves helps them achieve their goals and ultimately helped them prevail in the end.
WORKS CITED
Maclean, Hugh. “Disguise in King Lear: Kent and Edgar.” JSTOR. JSTOR, n.d. Web. 24 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York: Folger Shakespeare Library, 1993. Print.
Humans and the Natural World in King Lear
Paulina Sideris
How often do we reflect on our role in the universe? Do we contemplate our relationship with the natural world, or do we ignore it? Are we a part of nature, or do we exist in our own separate realm? As humans of modern times, we consider ourselves planetary managers who hesitate to think twice about the natural world but blindly alter it for our benefit. In the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras, which were plagued by religious conflict and infused with pre-Christian ideals, humans felt a more intimate connection to the natural order. Thus, “notions of man, his nature, and his place in the universe were an amalgamation of both the Christian and pagan philosophies.” As follows, monarchs–like their pagan predecessors–sought to legitimize their rule by connecting their power to harmony in the natural world. By nature, everyone in the hierarchy had a set of obligations, ultimately ensuring that the monarch remained uncontested (Doncaster). So the natural world served as the crucial link between the monarch and divinity that maintained balance within the kingdom. We’ll notice that in King Lear, man never stands alone. Shakespeare uses the physical world to build his observations of humanity. References to celestial bodies, weather, animals, and pagan gods reflect not only the disruption of social order but the characters’ inner turmoil as well.
In the tragedy, chaos results whenever characters reject the interdependence of man and nature. From the start, Lear calls upon the “shadowy forests […] champains rich’d […] plenteous rivers […] wide-skirted mountains” within his kingdom to legitimize his power (I.i.10-11). As he prepares the contest to name his successor, it becomes clear that he sees himself as master of the natural world, but he proceeds to reject the social order mandated by his connection to nature by prematurely renouncing his power to his daughters. As if this is not unnatural enough, Lear vows upon “the sacred radiance of the sun,/ the mysteries of Hecate and the night,/ By all the operations of the orbs” [the sun, moon, and planets] to disclaim Cordelia, his dutiful daughter, for failing to exaggerate her love for him (I.i.110-112). Following Cordelia’s marriage to France and expulsion from the kingdom, her sisters, Regan and Goneril, begin to draw plans for the dissolution of their father’s power. Father-daughter roles defiantly reverse: Regan and Goneril treat their father like a child, controlling his allowance of soldiers, chastising him for his unruliness, and choosing his place of residence. His daughters now command him rather than obey him, completely defying social order.
The events that transpire early on in the tragedy introduce a major theme: the natural world “links all spheres of existence in their proper relationships” (Doncaster). For Lear, one decision to reject nature spirals quickly into multiple rejections of nature and ultimate chaos in the human realm. Eventually, Regan and Goneril expel their father from the castle and leave him to wander in the storm. In response to his exile, Lear declares:
No, you unnatural hags,
I will have such revenges on you both
That all the world shall — I will do such things —
What they are yet I know not, but they shall be
The terrors of the earth. You think I’ll weep.
No, I’ll not weep.
(II.iv.275-281)
Here, just as Lear loses his last claim to power, he tries to reclaim his right to rule by summoning the nature to take revenge on his daughters. When in the face of his loss of identity he refuses to cry, Shakespeare’s stage directions indicate that the storm gathers strength and begins to roar. The portentous weather echoes not only Lear’s inner turmoil but the chaos that results from Regan and Goneril’s unnatural rejection of their father, violation of human social order.
In act 3 scene 2, we see that the brutal storm echoes King Lear’s inner conflict. Going mad, Lear begins to converse with the physical world:
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here i stand your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man,
But yet I call you servile ministers”
(III.ii.16-20)
Here he concedes that every man, common or royal, is inferior to the gods who rule nature but ignorantly expects them to bend to his will. Here Shakespeare paints a bleak picture of human civilization: nature is omnipotent, and humans are not. Our social order is merely modeled after that of the universe. We’ve duped ourselves into thinking we abide by our own laws when, really, we follow those of nature. Yet we continue to think of ourselves as masters of the elements.
Times haven’t changed, and human nature is still the same. We still feel jealous, hunger for power, and relate to our family members the way characters do in King Lear (except, of course, less dramatically). More imminently, we still consider ourselves the masters of the natural world, so bend it to benefit our human-created economic and political institutions. We tear down forests for timber and land, overexploit our fields, destroy animal ecosystems to build cities, and deplete our water and mineral resources faster than we can return them. And what does nature do in response? It dries up our wells, warms the poles, and raises our water levels. Nature disagrees with our unnatural actions, so it seeks to oust our species. This unbearable truth is in fact proof of Shakespeare’s assertion that humans belong to a much larger universe and must strive to maintain balance within it.
WORKS CITED
Doncaster, Sarah. “Nature and Animal Imagery in Shakespeare’s King Lear.” Nature and Animal Imagery in Shakespeare’s King Lear. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. N.p.: Folger Library, 2009. Print.
The Roar of the Storm
Sadie Scott
The stage is dark and bare, except for a single light flooding one spot, stage left. The silence drenches the audience as they sit, waiting. The storm approaches in a low grumble that starts at their feet and creeps up their skin until the audience cannot do a thing but give in. Their eyes ready for figures to swarm the stage, but only one enters to catch their gaze. Lear stumbles onto the scene, his eyes wild and tears stream. His beard, once clean and crisp, is now haggard and wild. Royal robes that kept his spine straight, were torn from him before realizing it was too late. The storm is Lear’s heart, roaring with madness. The clouds made of gray and black lights are swollen with rain, only to resemble Lear’s deep pain from his eldest daughters showing him such harsh disdain. As Lear looks to the heavens, he lets out a sob, “Blow, wind, and crack your cheeks! Here I stand your slave, a poor, infirm, weak and despised old man…” (III.ii.45) thus illustrating the complex relationship between Lear and the raging storm in act 3, scene 2 of William Shakespeare’s King Lear.
While there are many key themes and concepts in King Lear, many have argued that the role of Nature in the play bounds each individual theme together, “The concept of Nature in Shakespeare’s King Lear is not simply one of many themes to be uncovered and analysed, but rather it can be considered to be the foundation of the whole play” (Doncaster). There is the pure and true nature residing in the character Cordelia – a nature to which her father, King Lear, is blind. There is the vengeful nature driving Edmund’s diabolical deeds that pits father against son. These are natures that occupy the human ethos, but there is also the physical portrayal of nature, represented as trees reaching for the sun, oceans swirling, and winds blowing. Shakespeare had a knack for using the setting of nature as a symbol for the emotions felt by his characters: the spring blossoms blooming as Orlando’s love for Rosalind grows in As You Like It or the turbulent seas in the Tempest that embody Prosperos’s malicious intent. However, it is the storm that builds as Lear’s anger builds and erupts when Lear can no longer hold back his fury that best illustrates Shakespeare’s ability to incorporate nature as more than a symbol in his works.
The metaphorical blindness that both Lear and Gloucester, a noble in Lear’s court, possess when it comes to seeing -or in their case not seeing- the truth presented by their children, is a symbol. The blinding of Gloucester and Lear’s insanity at the end of the play further emphasize blindness as a symbol. Some say that the storm in act three is merely a symbol used by Shakespeare, but it has been argued a countless number of times that the storm is more than that: it stretches beyond symbolism and becomes a character itself (Speaight). The storm is connected to Lear by representing his inner turmoil and mounting madness as he realizes that his power as King is slowly slipping from him – or rather, to his chagrin, being taken from him by his eldest daughters. This anguish grows and with it, so does the storm. But the storm extends beyond that connection to embody its own power: the immense power of nature itself. The storm is so raucously tempestuous that it forces recognition upon Lear of his own mortality. The storm is so powerful that it inflicts a certain humility on Lear that is perhaps even greater than the humility beaten into him by his eldest daughter’s betrayals. This ability allows the storm to grow limbs, a brain and a voice that is strategically timed to roar as Lear’s anguish grows. In many scenes, its development as a character is so significant that it forces other players onstage to converse with it:
GLOUCESTER. “The King is in high rage / […] but will I know not whither” (II.iv.281-283).
REGAN. “Shut up your doors / […] He is attended with a desperate train” (II.iv.291-292).
CORNWALL. “Come out o’th’ storm” (II.iv.296).
GENTLEMAN. One minded like the weather, most unquietly…
Contending with the fretful element;
bids the wind blow the earth into the sea…
tears his white hair,
which the impetuous blasts, with eyeless tage…
and bids what will take all”
(III.i.2-15)
LEAR. Singe my white head:
and thou all-shaking thunder…
crack nature’s mould…
that make ingrateful man…
fire are my daughters. I task not you…
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
(III.ii.6-14)
William Hazlitt, when discussing the characters of King Lear, stated that, “The Lear of Shakespeare cannot be acted”. The multitude of intense emotions felt by Lear’s character would be impossible for a single actor to embody, “The explosions of his passions are terrible as a volcano: they are storms turning up and disclosing to the bottom that rich sea, his mind, with all its vast riches. It is his mind which is laid bare. This case of flesh and blood seems too insignificant to be thought on; even as he himself neglects it. On the stage we see nothing but corporal infirmities and weakness” (Hazlitt). The other characters onstage with Lear are as meek as mice compared to the feelings flooding through Lear – all except for the storm whose voice is just as loud. Because Shakespeare made the storm influenced by Lear’s rage, because of the way the two of them are intertwined, because the storm is an extension of Lear himself, the storm is the only character in the play who can match Lear’s intensity. Lear may connect with many different characters throughout the play, and those connections may hold mighty importance, but it is his connection to the storm that gives the audience or reader insight into his psyche.
In James Pittendrigh McGillivray’s early twentieth century painting of King Lear in the storm, Lear is depicted as looking forlornly up into the darkening sky, hair whipping across his face. Many have tried to capture the nature of Lear’s expression as he stumbles through the storm but most are lacking. For the true nature of Lear’s emotions go beyond his body and expand into the storm above. The storm and Lear are connected and bring about the climax of emotions in the play. The storm goes beyond nature and beyond symbolism. The relationship between Lear and the storm is not just one of man and nature, it is also one of two souls battling against one another and yet perfectly synchronized.
WORKS CITED
Doncaster, Sarah. Representations of Nature in King Lear. Shakespeare Online. 20 Aug. 2000. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.< http://www.shakespeare-online.com/essays/learandnature.html >.
Speaight, Robert. Nature in Shakespearean Tragedy. N.p.: Collier, 1962. Print.
Hazlitt, William. “Characters of Shakespeare’s Plays.” Project Gutenberg. N.p., 1 Feb. 2004. Web. 8 Dec. 2013.
James Pittendrigh McGillivray’s early twentieth century painting of King Lear in the Storm.