King Lears Downfall of Recognition \'I Know

¶ … King Lears Downfall of Recognition

'I know what you are," says Cordelia to her sisters Goneril and Regan. Alas, her father does not perceive the brutality and mendacity in the hearts of his older children -- and Lear pays a heavy price for his failure to recognize their true characters. (I.i.270, p.1258) Because Lear also fails to see the goodness of his youngest daughter, or even to recognize the guise of his loyal Lord Kent when the man wears the clothes of an impoverished servant named Caius, King Lear must lose everything he owns, before he achieves any spiritual understanding.

King Lear begins the tragedy that bears his name the very pinnacle of his society, and ends the play as one of its lowest creatures, a demented, mad elderly man cradling the body of his dead daughter. He wishes to abdicate responsibility for rule to his daughters and their husbands, yet to be treated like a king while in their homes, without the responsibility of a king. This proves to be an impossible dream, given the young people's intolerance of his ways.

The mistake in Lear first makes is his foolish misapprehension of Regan and Goneril's showmanship for real feeling. "I am sure my love's/More ponderous than my tongue," says Cordelia, his only honest daughter. (I.i.78, p.1256) Because Cordelia is unwilling to speak lies about her love for her father being greater than her love for her husband, she is disinherited, although her stance of truth so impresses the King of France that she wins this man's hand anyway, even though "now your [Cordelia's] price has fallen," her father sneers at her. (I.i.195, p.1256) In this first scene of recognition, Cordelia emerges with the better husband between her two suitors from Burgundy and France, because she speaks her mind honestly, even though she loses her kingdom and her father's love in Britain.

Lear casts her out to the elements and "your large speeches may your good deeds approve," he notes, to Regan and Goneril. (I.i.184 p.1257) But all the elder sisters wanted were their father's money, not their father's presence. Ironically, Lear himself will be cast out, once he has disinherited himself of the mantle of kingly power. He braves the elements with the loyal fool and a true son Edgar, a young man is pretending to be a madman to protect himself from his own father, who has been blinded by poisonous lies about his legitimate son by the illegitimate Edmund.

Gloucester will become literally blind before he can truly see Edgar for what he really is, a son who loves him. Lear must go mad before he can really see Cordelia's goodness. Cordelia's is true goodness because it comes without ostentation. Yet even at the very end of the play, while he is dying, Lear strives for a lie, attempting to pretend that Cordelia is dead, by seeing a feather move upon her still lips. Even facing death, Lear mis-recognizes truth, just as Edmond must pretend to his blind father that the man was saved from committing suicide by a miracle. In Lear, because the old refuse to see the young clearly, they are doomed.

EXAMINE THE DISINTIGRATION OF MACBETH

Macbeth begins the tragedy of his rulership as a man on the top of his military society. He is one of the most respected of the Scottish captains. He is the first to be made the Thane of Cawdor by Duncan, after the first Thane's treachery. In the play's first two acts, Macbeth is also presented a fundamentally moral man, despite his being swayed to kill the king of Scotland by his wife. "Wake Duncan with they knocking! I would thou couldst." (II.ii.71., p.1320) However, this moral consciousness becomes corrupted. At first, Lady Macbeth must step in, urge the murder, make the plan, and then distract the investigating authorities by fainting.

But as the play wears on, Macbeth morally and spiritually disintegrates to preserve his rule. Macbeth is willing to kill his old friend Banquo. He grows paranoid and self-aggrandizing when speaking of Banquo and his other rivals. "My Genius is rebuk'd," by Banquo, "as it is said/Mark Antony's was by Caesar." (III.i.55, p.1323) The Act I dismissal of both Thanes of the witches becomes, in the twisted recollection of the fearful Macbeth, a damnation of Banquo. Instead of being able to verbally express his moral guilt as before, after killing Banquo Macbeth even hallucinates the presence of Banquo as a ghost -- a presence none of the other characters, even the equally guilt-ridden Lady Macbeth can see.

Macbeth literally becomes an absolute tyrant, ruling by surveillance and fear, where he once was free and had friends and respect from others of his class. "There's not a one of them [spies] but in his [Macduff's] house/I keep a servant fee'd." (III.v.130, p.1327) He kills the innocent Lady Macduff and Macduff's children, and does not even go about this as a formal execution, merely arranges it illegally, for others to do it upon the sly, while Macduff is away and cannot protect his wife. Macbeth becomes superstitious, relying upon the judgment of the witches, rather than trusting in his own military might and prowess to protect him, thinking that because no man born of woman can kill him, he is safe from all onslaughts. "Laugh to scorn the power of man," the deviltry conjured up by the three evil sisters says, and he believes it. (IV.i.80.p.1329)