King Lear: Who is it that can tell me who I am?

Lear is primarily a text about identity: specifically a text about disorientation and identity; about blindly losing one’s way and finding it again; about failing to listen carefully; about the miraculous possibility of spiritual recuperation and resurrection.

Lear’s provocative question affects us all. For who is Lear expecting an answer from? And who, in such a fallen and Godless world would have the courage or desire to answer him? Perhaps the play reveals that in the end, we have to answer the question ourselves and any attempt to do otherwise, is doomed to failure.All the characters in the play are, in some ways, seeking self-definition. This search is rendered problematic as for some, the quest is essentially concerned with power and its deployment ; whilst for others, it is more metaphysical and involves the characters in conflicts between ego and compassion, imagination and selfishness.

The first scene of the play of course reveals Lear’s abject attempt to elicit an answer to this(later) question. The love auction ironises all attempts to demand and quantify love. yet in distancing  ourselves from the ‘foolish egotism’ of a lonely aged Lear, we ignore our own daily needs for reassurance and the heady tonic of notice. Such a revelation of similarity is necessary in our appreciation of the play as it prevents us from condemning Lear and Gloucester as silly foolish old men, and makes us accept that they are far nearer to ourselves than we might like to admit. For Lear’s charade of abdication and Gloucester’s charade of complacent virility, are ripped asunder by forces over which they have no control; ironically these forces are their own offspring and thus mirrors of   themselves. They are reflections and refractions of their supposedly intimate relationships.

It is striking how little either Lear or Gloucester actually know their children. The singular absence of a Mrs Lear or a Mrs Gloucester ensure that the patriachal world of King Lear’s kingdom remains aridly masculine and  without feminine nurture. It is a harsh world and such a world distorts the good into other shapes so that characters seem parodies of virtuous behaviours.

One of the most apparent lacks in the early stages of Lear is the lack of active listening. Lear does not listen to himself, let alone to the reality of what he is hearing. Perhaps this lack emanates from his age or perhaps from his position? He is clearly suceptible to flattery and manipulation and this susceptibility precipitates the collapse of Lear’s Kingdom. He comprehends only a lexis of sycophancy and empty flattery and this lack of insight into the emptiness of so much language raises questions about his Kingship as well as his parental responsibilities and involvement. Do people in power lose or never learn the very real art of listening?  

The ‘darker purpose’ avowal ironises his own procedure and reveals his ignorance and lack of self-recognition and knowledge. And the rest of the play explores the ambiguity of this purpose. For the play is dark and it is destructive. It leads to an almost nihilstic end where all relationships are destroyed and taken away.

Part of Edmund’s compelling power in the play stems from his ability to manipulate the language of other characters into his own. Thus he seems to ‘hijack away’ the meaning from his fellows and thus lead them into words and worlds that are destructive and deadly.

‘…I like not this  unnatural dealing. ‘

‘Most savage and unnatural.’

How dangerous this is, when a speaker takes up our voice and usurps it. Ironically in a play peopled by poor listeners Edmund listens  and hears only too well. It is interesting that he thus uses an essential and rare human skill for illicit and corrupting ends. This ability highlights a reason perhaps why he is never allowed on the stage  with Lear. He is too powerful and too talented and could undermine Lear’s central position. Lear has to exist in a separate universe until the end, when of course it is Edmund who destroys Lear through the killing of Cordelia..ironically another signficant listener, capable of both good and bad listenings!  

Indeed we could argue that the play’s final gloom and hellish denouement stems from this uneasy juxtaposition of both ‘good and bad’ listenings on the part of Cordelia. For if she knew her father(and we presume she does as she is favourite daughter) then why does she negate the need he has for public acknowedgement, when he is so obviously dependent upon it? This decision to ignore the very real need of Lear for publicly voiced love, in in contrast to her astute and immediate recogntion of the insincerity of her sisters. Why then, this disjunction between good and bad listenings?  

And who is the greatest listener in the play?

Why of course the fool: he observes; he listens; he speaks.

‘Lear’s shadow.’

And what a compressed and utterly complete answer! Uncomfortable perhaps to be so known? 

‘

Posted in AQA English GCSE/A Level Snapshots