Journey of King Lear

     When we became older we face decisions we do not want to make. With the fear of the end, we do wrongs to our loved ones or to our selves. The journey of King Lear leads us through humiliation, loneliness, and finally madness.

     In the beginning, we see a character who fails to see his own and his own daughters’ nature. After dividing his kingdom with a rash moment of anger which covers the fear of death that comes with old age, Lear takes up a journey where change is expected.

      In every step of his journey, we see his repentance from his decisions. He banishes Cordelia and Kent and later in the play he searches for a loving daughter and a loyal servant. Lucky for him, he has Kent as disguised but not Cordelia until the end. We have some scenes where Lear puts his head in front of him and admits that he has done wrong after his anger has passed away and we see it in the conversation with the Fool who mocks him for giving away his throne:

                                           

                                               Lear: I did her wrong.
                                               Fool: Canst tell how an oyster makes his Shell?
                                               Lear: No.
                                               Fool: Nor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.
                                               Lear: Why? Fool: Why to put ‘s head in, not to give it away to his daughters, and leave his horns without a case. (I,v,20-26)

     Although we can not be sure whom he is apologizing subtlely Cordelia or Goneril however we can be sure of the fact that he has tides in his mind and this is not a tragedy about ‘’what happens to Lear but what happens within Lear’’. (Bennett 151) Moreover in many times, wee see Lear as he questions his own identity. Even in the same act.

                                 Lear: Who am I, sir? / Oswald: My lady’s father.(I,iv,67-70)
                                 Lear: Who is it that can tell me who I am? / Fool: Lear’s shadow. (I,iv,189-190)

     As his journey continues, Regan after Goneril did not give the comfort and patience he needs, Lear caries out ‘’O Reason not the need.’’ Before the storm scene where the emotional climax of the play is displayed. Elizabethans believed that whenever there is a disorder in the realm of human there will be a reflection of it in nature. There is why we see Lear’s inner chaos reflected in the storm. After the storm ‘’Lear approaches a breakthrough of the layers of reality that have so long surrounded him.’’ (MacLaughlin 392)

                                  Poor naked wretches,wheresoe’er you ara
                                  That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm
                                  How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,
                                  Your looped and windowed raggedness defend you
                                  From seasons such as these? (III,iv,28-32)

     We see how, as a king, Lear was so distant from his subjects, their problems, and their deficiencies. He only realizes these when he has given up his position in the court. We could say that this scene serves as both an epiphany for Lear and also an ironic criticize from Shakespeare for the actual kings and queens in the court who do not have any idea about the conditions of their subjects.
     With this scene, we start to think that he has gained a little perspective and empathy yet we see from his conversation with Mad Tom that he has to gain nothing. He asks him if it is his daughters of him who made him mad. He is still in his own circle of his ego and does not realize that there could be other earthly problems except his. In the farmhouse, with the mock trial scene, we see Lear’s madness come along further with his delusions and his childlike sadness. Moreover, we see another person other than the Fool and Kent who helps and companies the king in his journey who is Edgar.
   
                                              Lear: The little dogs and all,
                                                       Tray, Blanch, and Sweetheart—see, they bark at me.
                                              Edgar: Tom will throw his head at them.—Avaunt, you curs! (III, vi,20-22)

     Gloucester who has been blinded by Regan and Albany and saved grom his suicide by his own son recognizes the voice of his old friend who loudly complains while dressed with wildflowers. After their accountancy, Lear makes an important diagnosis about the world and convenience the audience that only children, drunken and mad people tell the truths:

                                                  When we are born, we cry that we come
                                                  To this great stage of fools.(IV,v,174-175)

      Brought to her by her soldiers, Cordelia rejoins with her father who admits that he is not in ‘’his perfect mind’’. However, after his sleep, he remembers her daughter and accepts to drink poision from Cordelia’s hands. For she is a forgiving and loving daughter, Cordelia gives assurance to Lear that she bare no hate for him. Before the last scene we see their role change and this time Lear gives assurance to Cordelia that they will get out from the imprisonment and watch the stars.

      After killing the man who hanged Cordelia, Lear gains the strength he has lost while he was facing oldness and fear of death. Once again, he confronts his three daughters and takes only Cordelia his respondent as he did at the beginning of the play.

     Lear is a character who took a journey to find his identity that he had divided it into three like he had divided his kingdom: a king, a father, and a mad man. We can argue whether Lear finds reason through madness or whether he has regenerated himself through the end or not but we would miss the important view which Northrop Fyre indicates implicitly: ‘’it is not what the characters have learned from their tragic experience, but what we have learned from participating in it, that directly confronts us’’ (325).

Works Cited

     Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of King Lear. Edited by Jay L. Halio, Cambridge University

Press, 2005.

     Frye, Northrop. Northrop Frye’s Writing on Shakespeare and the Renaissance. Edited by

Troni Y. Grande and Garry Sherbert, vol.28, University of Toronto Press, 2010.

      McLaughlin, Ann L. “The Journeys in ‘King Lear.’” American Imago, vol. 29, no. 4, 1972,

pp. 384–399. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26302714. Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.

     Bennett, Josephine Waters. “The Storm Within the Madness of Lear.” Shakespeare

Quarterly, vol. 13, no. 2, 1962, pp. 137–155. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2866783.

Accessed 16 Apr. 2020.

Photographs are taken from the movie King Lear (2018) adapted and directed by Richard Eyre.