Act II, Scene IV is a remarkable turning point in Shakespeare's tragedy of King Lear. Having been disrespected by Goneril, Lear arrives at Gloucester's castle. There both Regan and Goneril work in a coordinated fashion to control and limit Lear. In his eyes he has given them everything, and they wish to return the favor by dismissing his retinue of soldiers and leaving him with nothing.
It is as though a small child is having his toys taken away by Mommy, or being told he need not order his own meal as a few scraps off of Mommy's plate will be enough. In this way, an amazing reversal takes place. Goneril and Regan are clearly the parents; Lear is the child.
But what kind of parents are they? They show little charm or compassion for the inconveniences involved in hosting Lear. Indeed, it seems as though they leap at the first opportunity to confine him, rob him of respect or dignity. They are frigid mothers, like smoothe, cold-blooded Medusas. If Lear is an infant in their eyes, he is one they are trying to abort.
Their role in the play seems to be to betray and destroy the literal father. Rising from the ashes of this destruction will be a truer, kinder better father (albeit briefly). But Goneril and Regan will not benefit from the transformation they help set in motion. Only Cordelia, who from the beginning seems to value the archetypal father more than the literal father, will get a glimpse of Lear the man.
Lear imagined his retirement as a comfortable nap in the laps of his grown adult daughters acting as mother figures. What he gets instead is a humbling confrontation with the true brutality of nature.
Like Hamlet, Lear's journey can be viewed as a passage out of the mother realm and into the realm of the archetypal father. In both stories, much has to be sacrificed in order to make the crossing. But both Hamlet and to a greater extent Lear face death as better men for having done so.
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Excellent post. Lear is reduced to a child but why? Why do the forces of nature dismantle the ego and the heroic structure and turn a king into a kid. And why the daughters the instrument? Robert Johnson discusses the difference between the lance and the sword in the story of Sir Gawain and the Round Table. Sir Gawain once remarked that "We have won everything by the lance and lost everything by the sword". The lance is the symbol of discrimination and focus and the sword of destruction. Cordelia learns how to differentiate between the literal and archetypal fathers and loves her father as he is. The other two have not done that so they wish to dismantle the archetypal father for their own advancement but confuse the two and tear down the literal father. Something there is that does not like a father. There is a force of nature to take down the king and it is embodied in Goneril and Regan. Why must Oedipus lose his sight and depend on his daughter for guidance and why must Lear come undone. It's the ego that gets in the way, at the end. Antonio Machado, the Spanish poet once wrote "There are four things men have that are no good at sea, rudder, anchor, oars and the fear of going down"
ReplyDeleteIt seems as though the creation and the destruction of the ego are a critical part of the life cycle. We need the ego to survive here on earth, but we won't need it where we're going next.
ReplyDeleteThe father and mother roles must both be abandoned at some point. In literature and life, those who cling too tightly to those roles suffer. Those who hold them gently and make the first offer to step away fare better. Perhaps the former are parenting by the sword; the latter, by the lance.
I love the Machado quote. I notice he does not find fault with a sail. By surrendering control and working with the power of nature, man can perhaps find his way.