The
Character Of Life
Consciousness
Approach To Shakespeare
by
Garry Jacobs
The
Yoga of King Lear
King
Lear
is at once the most highly praised and intensely criticized of all Shakespeares
works. Samuel Johnson said it is deservedly celebrated among the dramas of
Shakespeare yet at the same time he supported the changes made in the text by Tate
in which Cordelia is allowed to retire with victory and felicity. Shakespeare has
suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas
of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of
chronicles.1 A.C. Bradleys judgement is that King Lear is Shakespares greatest work,
but it is not...the best of his plays.2 He would
wish that the deaths of Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Gloucester should be followed by
the escape of Lear and Cordelia from death, and even goes so far as to say: I
believe Shakespeare would have ended his play thus had he taken the subject in hand a few
years later....3
Many
critics have sworn that the story is too fantastic and cruel to be true and that it should
be viewed only as an allegory or fantasy. Yet Johnson called it a just
representation of the common events of human life and C.J. Sisson has cited
historical evidence from the lives of several men which closely resembled Lears
division of his kingdom and tragic rejection by his daughters.
Despite
its undeniable greatness, throughout the last four centuries King Lear has left audiences, readers and critics
alike emotionally exhausted and mentally unsatisfied by its conclusion. Shakespeare seems
to have created a world too cruel and unmerciful to be true to life and too filled with
horror and unrelieved suffering to be true to the art of tragedy. These divergent
impressions arise from the fact that of all Shakespeares works, King Lear expresses human existence in its most
universal aspect and in its profoundest depths. A psychological analysis of the characters
such as Bradley undertook cannot by itself resolve or place in proper perspective all the
elements which contribute to these impressions because there is much here beyond the
normal scope of psychology and the conscious or unconscious motivations in men. Nor can a
broad holistic approach such as G. Wilson Knights which portrays the dramatic milieu
of the play without clearly revealing the lines of causality, the role of character and
the relationship between symbol and reality, art and life.
We
can see in Shakespeares works a gradual development which in a sense parallels the
historical development of dramatic literature. In his early comedies plot is the sole or
major element and character remains a minor or insignificant determinant. As his art
develops, the delineation and individuality of character becomes more prominent and is
able to exert a major influence on the course of action. In his later works, Shakespeare
transcends even the boundaries of individual character, giving his works a still wider
amplitude. The character, atmosphere and forces at play in the social milieu are portrayed
and integrated with the plot. Not only man but physical nature--the animals, climate,
stars, seas--are related to and become expressions of the human experience. A power or
powers greater than man, forces of universal life, good and evil, the gods and
fate--influence and even determine the course of events overriding human motives and
action. But always the portrayal remains faithful to the realities and potentialities of
human nature. This is the impression we get from Shakespeares greatest works, the
impression of an all-embracing vision of human existence in its widest cosmic context.
King
Lear
is not only a consummate artistic masterpiece. It is also Shakespeares most
all-encompassing portrayal of human life. Character, atmosphere, dramatic techniques are
all employed and inextricably bound together in an effort to give living reality to his
vision. Like nature herself, Shakespeare has created a world which is in its essence and
major outlines, in its portrayal of human personality and social interrelations, in its
expressions of simultaneity and sequence and in many other respects true to life. The
challenge that he poses before us is to discover the nature of the correspondence between
his work and natures own creation and, once that correspondence is known, to see in
and through his work the character of life itself.
Numerous
theories have been put forth to explain the sequence of tragedies Shakespeare wrote during
this same period by linking it to some experience of melancholy, anger, despair in the
author himself. But such theories overlook the fact that it is in this very same period,
in fact, in these same tragic works that he has portrayed the heights to which human
nature can rise in its purest and noblest if not happiest terms. Surely the creation of so
much light alongside the darkness and the perfection of the artistic medium through which
he gives them expression argue against them having been written in a state of melancholy
or any other condition which is a drain on the mental energies. It is not the dark side of
human nature which is Shakespeares chief concern at all. His effort is to portray
human life in its fullest, widest and profoundest context; to reveal not only the dark
depths but also the treasure rooms of our being; to pierce beneath the superficial motives
and forces of our surface behaviour, social and cultural expressions, to the deeper levels
of individual character and human nature; and to place these aspects of human existence in
their true relation to the wider field of universal life. He chose the medium of tragedy
because at his time man had not yet emerged sufficiently from the lower and darker portion
of nature which he inherited from his animal ancestors. The greatest intensities of which
human life was capable were suffering, hatred and evil and it was through such experiences
that they most fully realized their place in the cosmic scheme. Certainly love, joy,
nobility, loyalty, self-giving were developed, in some individual cases to a very high
pitch, but they were not yet able to establish themselves in the consciousness of humanity
to the extent of the negative forces in nature.
In
King Lear Shakespeare transcends the natural
boundaries of drama to express life beyond the limits of his artistic medium. For this
reason Bradley calls it his greatest work but not his best play. Its failure as a play is
a success at a higher and wider level. In Macbeth
Shakespeare represents destruction at the physical level--war, murder, etc. In Lear it is faith, love, hope and expectation that
are destroyed--things of the mind. It is psychological destruction in the wider plane of
life, destruction of values not just bodies.
The
forces expressing themselves in King Lear are of
universal dimensions. Both good and evil find their purest and most powerful expressions
but it is the impression of evil which is most predominant and enduring. Kindness and
goodness were not sufficiently developed to get expressed on that scale. It can be seen
that Shakespeares evil, cruel characters are always more powerful than his good
ones. Even in The Tempest where he portrays the
power of good victorious, it is only by magic that it conquers, not as a normal power in
life. The expression he gives to good, though it reaches a high beauty, is less
compelling, inevitable and realistic because he is expressing conditions which human
consciousness is not yet fully able to realize. The intense expression of positive forces
is made possible by a further development of human culture.
The
universal character of King Lear by which we do not refer merely to its general
application to all mankind but to the intensity and extensity of the forces at play, is
indicated in many ways. The unbearable nature of Lears suffering, its prolonged and
unrelieved continuity, the destruction of not merely family but of the deep emotional
bonds between father and child, the disruption of an entire kingdom and Lears loss
of his sanity, all point to the action of very powerful forces. The swiftness with which
the issue leads to calamity is another indication. The Kings entire initiative is
compressed into a few short moments and all else is but an inevitable working out of that
initiative by life. Finally, even the forces of physical nature expressing themselves in
the storm play a role in his suffering. The intensity of evil has saturated that plane of
life and nature itself responds to the movement. On learning of Edgars betrayal,
Gloucester gives a superstitious but nonetheless accurate expression to the conditions
pertaining in the land.
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourgd by the sequent effects: love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide; in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond crackd, twixt son and father. (I.ii.100)
Bradley
reflects this universality of the forces at work and their evil nature: ...these
terrible forces bursting into monstrous life and flinging themselves upon those human
beings who are weak and defenceless, partly from old age, but partly because they are human and lack the dreadful undivided energy of
the beast.4
When
we recover from the shrinking of our senses at the horror which is presented, we discover
that though evil is by far the most intense and penetrating force represented here, it is
not either during the course of action or in the end a dominating influence against which
all others are helpless. Rather we find that this evil has been released into the
atmosphere by a chain of events it did not initiate and that after a brief but terrible
period of destruction those who were its instruments are themselves destroyed. A still
deeper insight into the life portrayed here will reveal that what we took to be a
thoroughly pessimistic portrayal of evil, suffering and destruction contains within it a
process of growing human consciousness and evolving social life.
As
the story opens, the political conditions in Britain are precarious. Lear is an aging
king, four score and upward, with three daughters and no male heir. Sooner or
later power must be transferred to one or more of his daughters. The two eldest, Goneril
and Regan, are sinister in nature and no division or assignment of power could satisfy
them which left any authority in the hands of another or even with each other. Therefore,
any arrangement was likely to be followed by civil war and a struggle for absolute power.
Through no mans fault or initiative, persons of extremely evil propensity were
placed very close to power. This situation is an outer expression of the conditions of the
social consciousness of the country. Until now Britain has been ruled by a powerful
monarch who kept the country unified by his strength. There is no one of equal power to
replace him. The solution which naturally suggests itself is a division into three parts,
each to be ruled by a daughter and her husband and the national unity maintained by
familial bonds. The change is necessitated by circumstance, but that circumstance reflects
a compelling inner necessity. Something in the social consciousness is seeking to evolve
beyond the limits of absolute power vested in a king. That evolution is what follows
Lears renunciation of power. All the resistances it meets, all the destruction it
releases are a preparation of the consciousness and a working out of that which opposes
the social progress.
As
King, Lear represents in himself the conditions of the country which identifies itself
with him just as he identifies himself with it. He is a man of great vital power, a
commander of men, not only by virtue of his position, but by his very nature. He is
generous, open and unsuspicious, though too choleric, vain, obstinate, passionate and
domineering to be simply called good. Beneath his vital personality of power
lies an emotional being of exceptional depth and richness which, once released by madness,
opens and universalises itself in sympathy with his fellowman. But as he is placed in
life, Lears emotions are too much dominated by selfishness, vanity and egoism to
express real love or affection.
As the country has come to a transition point, so has Lear. In his old age, he feels compelled to put aside the mantle of authority and spend his last days in the comfort and warmth of his youngest daughter Cordelias affection. There is in Lear an inner urge to renounce the satisfactions of power with which he is saturated and grow into the satisfactions of the heart. But there is also much in him which is so accustomed to the privileges and pleasures of absolute power that to give them up would itself seem like death. What takes place is a working out of the forces within his being, compelling and resisting a shift in consciousness from the vital to the emotional center.
Lear
announces a contest in which the kingdom is to be divided among his three daughters and
their husbands according to each ones profession of love and devotion to him. Even
the manner in which he expresses his intention forebodes a different outcome.
Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we have
divided
In three our kingdom; and tis our
fast intent
To shake all cares and business from our
age,
Conferring them on younger strengths, while
we
Unburdend crawl toward death. (I.i.35-40)
The
scheme is intended not only to satisfy Lears desire for affection but his love of
absolute power as well. At the very moment he proposes to relinquish the powers and
privileges of his position, he employs them to elicit assurances of devotion. Instead of
commanding, he wants to be persuaded with flattery. He is trying to raise himself from the
plane of power where things are ordered and commanded to the plane of emotions where
things can be given and received but never demanded. But he does so by using the mechanism
of power, the authority which commands. This insistence on using the lower means for a
higher end leads to tragedy.
The
elder two daughters have no difficulty fulfilling his request because they are incapable
of true affection and driven only by mercenary aims. Only Cordelia, the one who is
actually capable and full of tender feelings for her father, finds it difficult to flatter
his vanity in return for a kingdom. When he comes to her, the only reply is
Nothing. The intent of that Nothing is certainly not to harm but
it does immense harm. When Lear presses her further, she responds with a mental formula of
duty which only further disappoints and infuriates the king.
Cord.
Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave
My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty
According to my bond; no more nor less.
Lear.
How, how, Cordelia! Mend your speech a little,
Lest you may mar your fortunes.
Cord.
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lovd me;
I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they
say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
Half my love with him, half my care and
duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all.
Lear.
But goes thy heart with this?
Cord.
Ay, my good lord.
Lear.
So young and so untender?
Cord.
So young, my lord, and true. (I.i.90-106)
When
she refuses to make public professions of love, vanity coupled with pride sparks the
kings fury. In a moment of embarrassment and extreme outrage, he withdraws
Cordelias inheritance and disclaims all emotional relationship with her.
Thy truth, then, be thy dower!...
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. (I.i.107-115)
His
rashness and rage borders on pure cruelty and madness as the following lines reveal.
....The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbourd, pitied, and
relievd,
As thou my sometime daughter.
(I.i.115-119)
With
one sweep Lear banishes Cordelia from his life. With another he casts out his most true
and loyal servant, the Earl of Kent, who only seeks to save him from folly and the
catastrophe to which it inevitably leads.
To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to
lose it,
Thy safety being motive.
(I.i.154)
With
a third sweep, Lear bestows all his power and property on his two eldest daughters and
their husbands.
For
Lear it is a complete renunciation: renunciation of power, security and social position;
renunciation of true family ties and affection; renunciation of human fellowship,
goodwill, and service. These three represent all that supports life, nourishes,
strengthens and fulfils. With them resides the potential for great social happiness and
cultured living. Without them human life is primitive, barbarian, empty. By rejecting them
he abandons the encrusting protection they afford to each man at his own level and puts
himself in direct contact with forces of universal life and nature. Man grows by
renouncing the lower for something higher, by giving up what he is to become something
greater. Lears triple renunciation of power, family and friends opens his entire
being to the world around him and through an ordeal of suffering results in a growth which
he could not otherwise have made.
But
there is also in his renunciation a strong element of violence or offense to that which he
renounces. In the plane of consciousness not only the renunciation but the offense too has
its own result. In this division of the kingdom, Lear introduces a purely personal motive
into an issue of national import. He allows an old mans pride and vanity to overrule
a kings prudence. Having ruled the country as a sovereign monarch who identifies
himself with the kingdom, he wishes to divide and dispense it as personal property based
on his affection for his children and their devotion to him. A nation or community, like
an individual, has a consciousness of its own which responds to mans attitudes and
actions both overtly and through the subtler mechanism of life forces. Desdemonas
elopement with a black Moor was an affront to the social consciousness of Venice which
raised active resistance from that deeper level of life, resulting in her immediate
departure from the country. So also Lears action is a violence against the
consciousness of the country. By allowing pride and passion to take precedence over
national interests, he has sacrificed the country and put it into the hands of destructive
forces. Hereafter the power and protection he drew from the kingdom is cancelled and he is
left without its support. In the battle his own subjects and countrymen actually fight
against his cause in defending their land from foreign invasion. The intensity of the
consequences which follow is determined by the intensity of the plane in which man
functions, not merely the intention of the doer. Here it is the plane of national life,
therefore the intensity of consequences is very great.
Similarly
Lears curse on Cordelia for refusing to flatter him is an unpardonable offense to
the consciousness of family, human relations, the bonds between father and daughter. His
curse and rejection of Cordelia cancels all family bonds, all effective protection and
nurturance; for, to be effective, such bonds require reciprocity. Once he cancels them,
Cordelia becomes helpless to support him despite her deep wish to do so. Lear repeats the
same error in his curse of Goneril who subsequently becomes the chief instrument of his
suffering. Likewise the rejection of Kent is a rejection of the bonds of devoted service.
Kent continues to serve but his loyalty no longer has the power to save.
The
tragedy of Lear is made far more tragic and painful by the presence and suffering of the
kings youngest daughter, Cordelia. While our sympathy for the king is somewhat
restrained by his brutal cruelty towards others, there is nothing to dampen our emotional
response to Cordelias suffering and to prevent us from wishing along with Tate,
Johnson and Bradley that Shakespeare had given her a sweeter destiny. Nothing, that is, at
first glance. Harley Granville-Barker justifies her irreconcilable fate thus: the
tragic truth about life to the Shakespeare that wrote King Lear... includes its capricious cruelty. And
what meeter sacrifice to this than Cordelia?5 Yet in
another passage Granville-Barker has come much closer to touching on the real explanation.
I quote the passage at length.
It will be a fatal error to present
Cordelia as a meek saint. She has more than a touch of her father in her. She is as proud as he is, and as obstinate, for all her
sweetness and her youth. And, being young, she answers uncalculatingly with pride to his
pride even as later she answers with pity to his misery. To miss this likeness between the
two is to miss Shakespeares first important dramatic effect; the mighty old man and
the frail child, confronted, and each unyielding... If age owes some tolerance to youth,
it may be thought too that youth owes to age and fatherhood something more--and less--than
the truth...6
Again
he sums it up:
Pride unchecked in Lear has grown monstrous
and diseased with his years. In her youth it shows unspoiled, it is in flower. But it is
the same pride.7
As
in his portrayal of Desdemona, here too Shakespeare has presented a woman of beauty and
culture. Her demeanor is gentle and refined though not lacking in strength or
determination. Her emotions are deep, pure, loyal and enduring. Her mind is clear and
idealistic. Desdemona is more of the heart, softer and more graceful, while Cordelia
combines emotional goodness with a stoical will and courage born of idealism. Desdemona
inherited from her father a certain narrowness and rigidity of mental outlook and an
inability to see how others are affected by her actions. Likewise Cordelia has inherited
from her father, who is a far more powerful figure than Brabantio, a very limited mental
outlook which expresses itself because of her goodness as doctrinaire idealism and an
inflexible will functioning in accordance with those ideals.
As
Granville-Barker has pointed out, Cordelia possesses the same pride and obstinacy we find
in Lear, only her emotions are purer, more cultured and refined than his. We have already
quoted Lears response rejecting and cursing his best loved daughter. In eloping with
Othello, Desdemona infuriated her father to the point where he refused to have her
re-enter his home and died of grief shortly thereafter. Though her intention was never to
hurt him it comes as a mortal blow. Desdemona is only following the promptings of her
heart and mind. When Cordelia refuses to make public protestations of love to her father,
she too is only following the promptings of her heart and mind. She would fain use her
genuine affection for her father to win any worldly gain. The deeper emotions rebel at the
very thought of public demonstration. To her the truest thing is not to speak, rather than
flatter even by saying what is true. Lear is proud and vain. Cordelia refuses to be
compelled to satisfy his vanity in front of the entire court.
But
what is it in her that refuses? As Granville-Barker has said, it is the same element of
pride and vanity inherited from her father, the same adamancy and obstinacy and
wilfulness. Cordelia refuses to bring herself to the level of a bargain, to exchange her
precious emotions for a piece of land. The very idea of the contest is repulsive to her.
She decides to be silent and her silence has catastrophic consequences. Along with
Granville-Barker we must ask if youth owes to age and fatherhood something more--and
less--than the truth. By remaining silent and then speaking only a dry mental
platitude about divided duty to father and husband, surely Cordelia does not express the
truth. For the truth is that she feels deep affection for her father but resents hypocrisy
and mercenary professions. She acts on principle, a fixed narrow principle, but beneath
the principle is the pride of one who refuses to have her emotions commanded and who
clings unbendingly to her sense of personal dignity.
I yet beseech your Majesty--
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not, since what I well
intend
Ill dot before I speak--that
you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonoured step,
That hath deprivd me of your grace
and favour;
But even for want of that for which I am
richer¾
A still-soliciting eye, and such a tongue
That I am glad I have not, though not to
have it
Hath lost me in your liking. (I.i.224-233)
Cordelias
refusal, like Desdemonas elopement, is a violent blow to her father. Both have in
them an element of unconscious and unintentional cruelty to which the limited mind and
will are always prone. Cordelia like Lear can think only of her own position. She neither
considers nor responds to her fathers need. Her allegiance to truth has a touch of
self-righteousness and arrogance. Bradley observes that Fate makes on her the one
demand which she is unable to meet.8 What Bradley
calls fate can be seen on closer scrutiny to be an expression of a life principle. In Othello we saw the violent forces unleashed by
the social consciousness of Venice against the transgression of its values and the natural
defensive mechanism in social life which seeks to retard or destroy any attempt to rise
above the common existence toward some ideal condition: in this case, the romantic dream
of a perfect love. Life acted at the point of weakness--Desdemonas ignorant and
blind initiative which failed to evaluate her own nature realistically, the effect on her
father and the world around her, and Othellos impure lower nature whose capacity for
rage and jealousy necessarily negated the possibility of perfect love.
Cordelia,
like Desdemona, is one of natures higher creations. She embodies a high degree of
emotional and mental purity. Like Desdemona she is born into a society far less cultured
and pure, an atmosphere of low consciousness where evil has substantial scope for
expression. Life moves to stifle the budding perfection in her nature and it does so by
acting on the small grain of impurity in her otherwise sparkling character. What Bradley
calls fate is the activity of life forces at this one vulnerable point, the pride she
inherited from her father. Cordelias assertion of divided duty and Lears
assertion demanding professions of affection are the same trait. The movement that arises
to destroy him touches her also, for her act of relating to it by assertion. Because she
takes the initiative to speak arrogantly and advance the movement instead of cancelling
it, she loses the capacity to save her father later on.
The rejection of Cordelia, Lears most loving daughter, is followed by the banishment of Kent. As a character, Kent is a further and greater development of the qualities possessed by Horatio, Emilia and Macduff, but he is a character of a higher build. His is pure goodness expressed as loyalty and service. His role in life is service, not strength, to solace, not to save. His position, personality, and consciousness are those of loyal obedience. He recognises the authority in Lear and relates to it by selfless devotion. In his confrontation with Lear over Cordelias disinheritance, Kent shows the same adamancy as the King. He has the strength to speak out boldly, not the strength for powerful or effective action in life. Out of his affection for Cordelia and the King he transgresses his natural role in the court and denounces Lears action as madness.
Be Kent unmannerly
When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou do, old
man?
Thinkst thou that duty shall have
dread to speak
When power to flattery bows? To plainness
honours bound
When majesty falls to folly. (I.i.144-8)
The
immediate result is the order for his own exile from the kingdom and his donning a
disguise so that he may continue his service to Lear.
It is noteworthy that none of the truly evil characters in the drama have yet taken a conscious initiative. Up to this point everything centers around the interaction of Lear, Cordelia and Kent and all the terrible sufferings which follow have their source in this encounter. To rightly comprehend the tragedy which follows, it will not suffice to blame Goneril, Regan, Cornwall and Edmund. We must see the true significance of the court and the direct relationship between it and all that follows. We must ask and attempt to answer to our own satisfaction a number of crucial questions. Why does Lear suffer so much, so constantly and without any relief except death? Why is Cordelia caught in the same movement? Why is it that Lear and Cordelia are not finally given a few happy years together? These are the questions with which Shakespeare has most moved the hearts of his audience and most baffled the minds of his critics. We must discover the source of the great intensity and direction which finds expression in the action of the drama, and carries it to its inexorable conclusion.
Lear
is a dominating imperious king wielding very great natural strength. Though he takes
initiative to disinherit his youngest daughter and exile his faithful friend, there is not
in him the capacity for conscious and intentioned evil which we see prevalent in his two
elder daughters as well as in Cornwall, Edmund and Oswald. Nevertheless, there is a force
in Lear that releases a movement of destruction in which evil does rise and momentarily
take hold on the course of events. When Lear decides to renounce power in favour of
emotions, the vital egoism in him which thrives on power rises up and asserts itself
against the movement. It is the drive for power, attention, recognition, vengeance; the
habit of assertion, anger, rage; the traits of pride and vanity which take hold of him and
initiate a downward movement of destruction in opposition to the upward movement of the
heart. The course of events which follows is an inevitable working out of these opposing
movements. For until the lower is exhausted, the higher cannot be fulfilled.
The vital egoism in Lear is a dominating force which permits the existence and expression only of itself and its own will. Whatever submits and satisfies survives, the rest must vanish unnoticed or remain unexpressed. Such an atmosphere is stifling to the natural growth of other personalities which require freedom for self-expression in order that they may outgrow what is primitive and childish in favour of what is mature and cultured. These psychological circumstances almost inevitably result in suppression and repression rather than growth. Instead of being expressed and out-grown the capacities for selfishness, cruelty and perversity in man get organised beneath the surface into pure evil of great intensity. Lears daughters are the product of such an atmosphere. Goneril and Regan learned how to please their father in word and act while harbouring beneath the surface a hostility which gradually matured into organised evil. Only the youngest, Cordelia, who was Lears favourite and undoubtedly given freedom by his emotions from the iron hand of his will, was free to develop naturally the nobler qualities which lie latent in her father, depth and richness and goodness of heart. But even in Cordelia there is evident a wilful stubborn mind, sense of pride and the egoism that is their natural consequence and that prevents the emotions from fully blossoming in their native power for good. In Lears words,
O most small fault,
How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!
Which, like an engine, wrenchd my
frame of nature
And added to the gall. (I. iv. 266-270)
Cordelias
brief caustic remarks to her sisters after the court scene, reveal the manner in which
that egoism can express itself as cruelty whether justified or unjustified.
I know what you are;
And, like a sister, am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. (I. i. 269)
In
choosing to pursue a doctrinaire idealism, Cordelia loses not only her share in the
kingdom but the power to help her father. Because her idealism is genuine, she gains a
noble husband in the King of France and power outside of Britain. She loses her
inheritence for her pride but gains a husbands love for her love.
We
may appear unfair in emphasizing these negative qualities, especially where they are
present only as seeds in a noble personality like Cordelia. But the true nature of these
qualities and their native expression is fully reflected in Lears two elder
daughters. Heilman observes, this extension of inner conflict into conflicting
characters who in part objectify the warring subjective elements is most marked in
Lears family... Lears tragic flaw is the whole being of Goneril and
Regan.9 Simply to call Goneril and Regan evil or
inhuman is to overlook the capacities in human nature which make their existence possible.
A self-willed, obstinate, passionate egoism and its natural companions, pride, vanity,
arrogance and domination are traits present in Lear and his daughters. In each case they
express themselves as cruelty to others. Where the personality is large and the energy
great, the distorting effect of channeling all for ones own utility creates greater
intensities of cruelty. If in such a case there is added some element of perversity as we
see evident in Goneril and Regan, that perversity becomes an opening for forces of evil
and destruction to act in and through the human vehicle. The greater, the more powerful
the personality, the more the destruction. The result is a being with all the
undivided energy of the beast. It is this quality we find fully developed in Goneril
and less fully but perhaps more offensively in Regan whose lesser strength is compensated
by a greater joy in perversity.
When
we ask in bewilderment how one man could possibly give birth to such stark opposites as
the good Cordelia and these monsters, it is because we fail to understand the fundamental
condition of life which is that the worst and the best are inextricably bound together so
that only by completely eradicating the one can the other ever find free and full
expression. The evolution of life is nothing less than a gradual purification of all that
is ignorant, small, narrow, mean, selfish and perverse in man so that what in him truly
knows, loves and is capable of self-giving can develop and emerge. This process of
evolution of consciousness which Bradley refers to as process of purification
is what we see working out on a miniature scale in Lear as a representative--not merely as
a symbol--of the entire race.
As
Granville-Barker wrote, We may see, then, in Goneril and Regan, evil triumphant,
self-degrading and self-destructive.10 The force
which motivates them cannot be dismissed by any terms such as human smallness,
selfishness, hatred or meanness. It has an intensity and scope beyond the limits of their
personalities. It is contagious and spreads from them to Edmund and Oswald and Cornwall
evoking the worst from all who can respond to it. This evil is of the nature of a
vibration, a vibration of destruction. It destroys whatever it comes into contact with,
self or other. But destruction is not in itself synonymous with evil, for even the most
positive forces in the universe must employ destruction as a means to a greater creation.
The characteristic of evil which distinguishes it from all other vibrations in nature is
the intention to inflict harm either on the subject in which it arises or through him on
others. The extent to which that harm is the sole or major motivating force indicates the
degree or absoluteness of the evil.
But
for such evil to emerge in life some weakening and rift in the normal social fabric, some
opening is necessary. In Macbeth it is war. In
Othello it is the violent social transgression
of the elopement. Here it is Lears conscious initiative in renouncing power,
rejecting daughter and friend, three acts of violence against the consciousness of his
world which splits life open at its seams and allows all that is dormant below the surface
to erupt and dominate the scene.
In
Lear vanity is the occasion but it is not the driving force. His acts and their
consequences do not issue from that surface motive but from a deeper more powerful source.
Had there not been a deep stirring and eruption of self-destructive egoism in Lear
himself, the emergence of similar forces around him would not have been possible. As
Bradley puts it, we tend to regard Lear as a man more sinned against than sinning
... almost wholly as a sufferer, hardly at all as an agent ... we are in some danger of
forgetting that the storm which has overwhelmed him was liberated by his own deed.11
Once
that plane of life was activated there was no positive force of corresponding strength in
a position to counteract it effectively. All the good in Cordelia and Kent was powerless.
The evil released had to play to its own natural conclusion. In the process it not only
destroyed itself but brought forth the birth of something greater and truer.
The
true significance of Lears action soon becomes apparent. He has given up his powers
and property with the sole condition that he be maintained alternately by his two
daughters along with a company of one hundred knights. He has renounced power but wants to
retain its trappings. Almost immediately after the transfer of power Goneril finds an
excuse to complain of the arrangement and press for the dismissal of the kings
knights. Her action cannot be attributed to even the worst of motives, not even power or
greed. What is expressed is pure meanness, a desire to hurt, and the threat to remove his
train is aimed to strike directly at Lears enormous vanity and reduce him to a
whimpering child.
This admiration, sir, is much o
th savour
Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you
To understand my purposes aright.
As you are old and reverend, should be
wise.
Here do you keep a hundred knights and
squires;
Men so disorderd, so deboshd
and bold,
That this our court, infected with their
manners,
Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and
lust
Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel
Than a gracd palace. The shame itself
doth speak
For instant remedy. Be then desird
By her that else will take the thing she
begs
A little to disquantity your train;
And the remainders that shall still depend
To be such men as may besort your age,
Which know themselves and you.
(I.iv.236-251)
Goneril
is tactful in her psychological assault and her steward Oswald is the perfect instrument.
Before departing, Lear utters a horrible curse on Goneril which reminds us of his words to
Cordelia and the reason for his present suffering.
Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear.
Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend
To make this creature fruitful.
Into her womb convey sterility;
Dry up in her the organs of increase;
And from her derogate body never spring
A babe to honour her! If she must teem,
Create her child of spleen, that it may
live
And be a thwart disnaturd torment to
her.
Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,
With cadent tears fret channels in her
cheeks,
Turn all her mothers pains and
benefits
To laughter and contempt, that she may feel
How sharper than a serpents tooth it
is
To have a thankless child. Away, away! (I.iv.275-289)
Bradleys comment here is perceptive:
The question is not whether Goneril
deserves these appalling imprecations, but what they tell us about Lear. They show that,
although he has already recognised his injustice towards Cordelia, is secretly blaming
himself, and is endeavouring to do better, the disposition from which his first error
sprang is still unchanged. And it is precisely the disposition to give rise, in evil
surroundings, to calamities dreadful but at the same time tragic, because due in some
measure to the person who endures them.
The perception of this connection, if it is
not lost as the play advances, does not at all diminish our pity for Lear, but it makes it
impossible for us permanently to regard the world displayed in this tragedy as subject to
a mere arbitrary or malicious power. It makes us feel that this world is so far at least a
rational and a moral order, that there holds in it the law, not of proportionate requital,
but of strict connection between act and consequence.12
Lear
departs to seek refuge and support from Regan. But he finds in her hostility equal to
Gonerils. What Regan lacks in quality of evil, in the capacity for original ideas of
cruelty, she compensates for in quantity by an even cruder more overt harshness. Cornwall
throws Lears messenger Kent into the stocks, and the king himself is driven out onto
the stormy heath by their calculations to reduce his company of knights.
The
difference between Goneril and Regans husbands is noteworthy. Albany is a good, mild
man as Goneril constantly reminds him,
This milky gentleness and course of yours,
Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,
You are much more ataxt for want of wisdom
Than praisd for harmful mildness. (I.
iv. 342-345)
He
is deeply in love with his beautiful but evil wife. His goodness and affection give the
impression of weakness. But once he fully realises his wifes nature, the attachment
is broken and the strength of his character emerges. Cornwall, on the other hand, shows no
capacity for gentleness, affection or goodness. He is a small personality of bad temper,
aggressiveness and cruelty whose limited energies for evil are quickly exhausted. Like
Regan, he joys in perversity but lacks the strength to organise it for any purpose.
Goneril has married a good man opposite to her evil capacities in every respect while
Regan has married one similar to herself in size and nature. The evil in Regan is crude
and primitive. It issues from the vital being. The evil in Goneril is organised in a
developed mind, it is more self-conscious and more absolute. The undeveloped vibration of
evil in Regan attracts a mate who can bring out its further development while the mature
evil in Goneril attracts a mate to destroy it. Life supports every vibration until it
reaches its full stature and then provides the necessary circumstances for its destruction
or transformation.
1.
Casebook: King Lear, Edited by Frank Kermode,
Macmillan & Co., 1969 pp. 27 & 29.
2.
Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan
& Co., 1965, p. 202.
3.
Ibid., pp. 202 & 206.
4.
Ibid., p. 220.
5.
Prefaces to Shakespeare Vol. II,
Granville-Barker, B.T. Batsford Ltd., London, 1963, p. 48.
6.
Ibid., p. 48.
7.
Ibid., p. 50.
8.
Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan
& Co., 1965, p. 265.
9.
Casebook: King Lear, Edited by Frank Kermode,
Macmillan & Co., 1969, p. 175.
10.
Prefaces to Shakespeare, p. 48.
11.
Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan
& Co., 1965, p. 231.
12.
Ibid., p. 234.