King lears emotional stages
King lears emotional stagesKing Lear’s Emotional Stages
Throughout the play King Lear, Shakespeare portrays King Lear as a
normal human being with a very complex and fragile character. In this very
sentimental play, Shakespeare places Lear through the worst anguish of his
life (Bruhl 312). The anguish Lear goes through helps him finally realize that
human nature is not always loving, caring, and giving as his kingship
disguises him to think. One may describe the mental states Lear goes through
as myriad mental states. Throughout the play Lear reaches many realizations
through his mistakes and symbolic madness, people’s wrong doings toward
him, and his return to sanity through redemptive salvation.
Lear makes many mistakes at the end of his lifetime. The want of an
untroubled life of second childhood without the responsibilities of a well
respected king is the main mistake Lear makes. The slippage of his self-
image finally causes him to go mad (Dominic 233). Before Lear goes mad he
realizes the state in which he is turning when he states, “My wits begin to
turn.”( III.ii.67). Lear’s suffering is primarily mental and climaxes when
Regan throws him out in the storm (Bruhl 317). The main mistakes appears “
as he [Lear] enters the phantasmagoria [fantastic imagery, as in a dream] of
his madness”( Halio 192). This type of thinking makes Lear become mentally
unstable.
One can attribute King Lear’s main mental anguishes to the direct act
of wrong doing towards him. The wrong doings cause so much suffering
because it comes from the two people he thought loved him more than any
person on earth, Goneril and Regan. These ungrateful daughters strip Lear of
his knights when he gives over his power (Dominic 233) of which this quote
makes an exemplary example:
Regan: And speak’t again, my lord. No more with me
Lear: Those wicked creatures yet do look well favored
When others are more wicked: not being the worst
Stand in some rank of praise. I’ll go with thee.
Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty
And thou are twice her love.
Goneril: Hear me, my lord:
What need you five and twenty, ten, or five,...
Regan: What need one?
Lear: O, reason not the need! Our beset beggars
Are in the poorest thing superfluous. (II.iv.257-267)
This conversation describes how evil subverts good; but in the end good is
victorious (Ribner 136). Lear’s daughters cause him to think that everyone
who says they love him will turn on him.
In the end of the story, Lear reaches the pinnacle of redemptive
salvation. Lear sees his imprisonment as a time he and Cordelia can “live, /
and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh/ At guilded butterflies and
hear poor rogues/ Talk of court news...(V.iii.11-14). King Lear realizes
Cordelia’s extreme love for him and wishes to make up for lost time and seek
her forgiveness for his rage. God then rescues the souls of Lear and Cordelia
from the prison of there bodies and unites them in eternal bliss (Siegel 188).
The acts of kindness Cordelia bestows on him at the end of the story confuses
King Lear.
Lear goes through many important stages during the play. The first
stage is his naive and immature character in dividing his kingdom according
to his daughters’ love. The second stage is a descent into madness causing his
self-esteem to fall. The third and most noble stage is his realization of evil
and redemptive salvation. Lear’s struggle portrays man’s struggle through life
from childhood, to the confusion of adulthood, and to the eventual wisdom of
the aged (Ribner 136). Through these three stages Lear mentally goes from an
immature child to becoming a wise king, and his powers goes to the contrary.
Work Cited
Bruhl, Marshal De. British Writers. New York: Scribner’s Son, 1964.
Dominic, Catherine C. Shakespeare’s Characters for Students. Detroit: Gale
Publishers, 1997.
Halio, Jay L. “ Double Plot of King Lear.” Readings on the Tragedies of
William Shakespeare. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York: The Greenhaven
Press Literary Companion Series, 1996. 189-193.
Ribner, Irving. Patterns in Shakespearean Tragedy. London: MacMillan,
1960.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Ed. Russell Fraser. New York: Penguin
Group, 1963.
Siegel, Paul N. Shakespearean Tragedy and the Elizabethan Compromise.
New York: Oxford University Press, 1957.