I must admit, I marveled at the world of difference between Cordelia and her older sisters. How could these three be sisters? Cordelia embodies a sort of idealistic femininity with its traditional values of compassion, devotion, honesty and humility; and plays this role throughout the play. Regan and Goneril, on the other hand, are characteristically masculine (to an extreme), and possess a warrior's intensity and values - intent on obtaining and maintaining power with no consideration for those they cut down on their way there. Cordelia values her family, while her sisters care only for themselves.
While Shakespeare omits any mention of the queen, I find my mind grappling for a mother character. She is not present at the outset, that much is certain - but I wonder what role Lear's wife played in the rearing of the children. Probably, it is not key to analyzing the story itself, but it is intriguing to think about. How could a mother's sensibilities root themselves so strongly in the youngest daughter, while skipping those that came before? Or maybe my assumptions made regarding the queen's character were flawed: what if, if fact the woman was cruel and conniving? In this way, she might have bestowed her evils upon her eldest and died before she could pollute the mind of the young Cordelia. (Though my reading of the King challenges this hypothesis.) My curious nature begs a prequel to Shakespeare's tragedy. Still, such details shall not impede my analysis further.
The attributes of the daughters have [briefly] been discussed; what to say of the king himself? At the opening of the play, Lear is at the top of his game - a powerful ruler that has proven his prowess on the battlefield and on the throne. No one would or could challenge his masculinity. At the close, he has become a wandering old man clinging onto reality with little success. But what is the cause for his lack of sanity? Copellia Kahn suggests a shifting of sensibilities from a masculine to feminine mentality. She claims King Lear is initially unable to properly read the truth of his daughter's proclamations of love, as the patriarchal world in which he lives lacks the facility to comprehend truth in the matriarchal realm of love. It is not until he loses his power and his mind that his long-denied femininity surfaces, granting him a lens to see the truth of Cordelia's quiet devotion.
Indeed, when Lear's power begins to crumble, he sees more clearly. He realizes that his eldest daughters have manipulated and sabotaged him - their own father. He gets to the point where he can relate to Cordelia's plight, and he cries tears of shame for having subjected her to such severe punishment.
I must say that Kahn's observation that "[King Lear] learns to weep and, though his tears scald and burn like molten lead, they are no longer 'women’s weapons' against which he must defend himself" brings my mind back to the nonexistent prequel. (Was his wife a shrew that manipulated him with tears?) Honestly, this blurb is just for me ... overlook it. Please.
I'm going to start out by saying that I love the title, and that's what drew me to commenting on your blog! I really don't see how Cordelia is related to Goneril and Reagan, either. Cordelia seems to be the yang to their yin, and overall are complete opposites of each other (I'm grouping Goneril and Reagan together as one entity). The two evil sisters really do seem to have all of the masculine qualities in them without a hint of feminine compassion. In the beginning of the play, they share more similarities to their father than Cordelia, it seems. However, I can only imagine, with such a strong, honest following that he has after he gives up his kingship, that Lear is a good King, and probably good father.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Lear doesn't necessarily shift from masculine to feminine qualities at the end. He just seems to open his eyes and see more clearly the injustice he has done and that has been done unto him. It's a nice change, except I think it would be nicer if he wasn't as helpless and weak as he becomes. Shakespeare seems to have a problem making characters normal. They are either good or evil or headstrong/prideful or weak/degenerate.
I would first like to say that you wrote this really well. Secondly, I want to know where the mother was as well. Usually mothers are seen as a good influence, so I want to suppose that the mother was a good person who simply passed sometime before the play started. Because she is not mentioned at all, I think it is safe to say that she is dead. Who has a wife or mother that they don’t even say a word about? It would have been nice to find out who she was and where she went and what kind of influence she had on the household. Lear might see women’s tears as a “weapon”, but maybe that is only because he has not understood the healing power of well-shed tears. Men are not prone to crying all the time, but once in a while it seems like it should be ok. Maybe it was his daughters who used tears to their advantage. Maybe Regan and Goneril would cry when they didn’t get what they wanted and thus learned to manipulate their father.
ReplyDeleteTears may have been a sign of weakness—a sign that he could not show as king or risk being over-thrown. He has nothing to lose at the end—his kingdom has been divided up among his daughters, he has banished Kent and Cordelia, and he is no longer king save for in name. Because he has nothing to lose, maybe he feels ok about letting go and expressing what he really feels.