I've been sitting here, maybe 5 minutes, thinking about how to start off this entry. I don't want to bore people to death by just mumbling out my immediate response to Coppelia Kahn’s essay. So, let me start off by talking about the play first and how much I absolutely loved it! In the beginning, it took me some time to get into the "Shakespeare" mode. After that minor adjustment, it was an amazing read. I must admit it was my first time reading King Lear, and what an experience it was. At the end I remember thinking, "well (insert expletive), who is left alive?" It was such a bummer. Everyone died, but it was a damn good and entertaining read. It was exciting to see everything unravel, especially with the evil sisters. It was also heart breaking to see King Lear go insane. It was true to its title as a tragedy, and I loved reading every minute of it.
Now let me get to the essay, entitled "The Absent Mother in King Lear ", written by Coppelia Kahn. In this essay it claims that the play can be interpreted as King Lear finding his feminine side, so he can re -connect with his daughters. I agree with this. In a way, King Lear's journey through the book is in fact a journey in finding the woman within himself. At first he was very serious and showed no emotion (100% man). Towards the end he softens up, and finds the softer side of him that he needed to acquire to understand his daughter, Cordelia.Now, my question is, does that mean that in order to accept your feminine side it requires someone to become insane? Towards the end, I think everyone can agree, King Lear lost his mind a little (became hysterical). So this means that being a woman, feeling emotion is associated with losing your mind? This was just a thought that happened to pass through my mind. I do believe that King Lear did accept and find his softer side, in order to connect again with Cordelia. I think it was something that he held inside of him the whole time. It took losing his daughters, to have it come out. However, as King Lear finds his maternal side, his daughters, Goneril and Regan, seem to have acquired their fathers "manly" ways. They plan against their father and become rather brutal. What does this mean? If King Lear becoming more feminine means he has found his maternal side, then what does it mean when his eldest daughters find their "masculine" side? This essay brought some interesting questions to my mind. I have already gone back to read a scene or two to see if I can see the puberty(becoming a woman) of King Lear in the play. I believe that it does happen, the only problem I am having is figuring out exactly where he knows he must accept his feminine side. Maybe someone can help me understand it a little better.
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I chose to comment on your blog as I read it before posting my own and yours sparked some ideas for me.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all- very great post; I love your parallels between the stages to adulthood and King Lear- very clever.
I also looked at the play as King Lear trying to find the woman in himself, but I also looked at it as King Lear perhaps just giving up his old ways and sincerely trying to be a better parent to his daughters. Looking at how Regan and Gonneril turned out, he was shocked at what his parenting (or lack there of, perhaps?) produced in these women (not all bad traits, but a shocking combination of): ruthlessness, resourcefulness, determination, malice , diabolicism, et cetera.
Surely King Lear also knows he is soon to die- he is getting older, after all! Perhaps this change in him was his last chance at redemption? Even if it was too late, he made an effort- although it seemed to be in vain… no one was saved in the end…
I was kind of bummed out at the end, too. This is only evidence of Shakespeare’s great skill at writing tragedies: truly making the reader feel remorse and regret.
I agree with you that King Lear seems to soften up throughout the play. It does seem that the "crazier" he gets, the more he cries and responds to situations like women do (with emotions). It is very interesting to see such a powerful character portrayed this way. I do think that his eldest daughters have seemed to get away from their emotions also as they seem to get "harder" throughout the play. They don't feel comfortable expressing their love for their father in the beginning of the play and it comes out throughout the play that they loathe him. They just want the materialistic things in life; titles, land, power, and wealth. The daughters scheme to get what they want and they take out whoever should get in their way.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with the fact that the play was a bit hard to get into at first. I feel like I need a Shakespeare warm- up in order to understand the writing. I agree with what you said about King Lear finding his feminine side in order to reconnect with his daughters. At first, it seemed like they did not understand one another at all, and he needed to become more vulnerable and realize his dependence before he could see how much he had hurt his daughters, especially Cordelia, and how the evil daughters took advantage of him. The way you put it, it does seem sexist, but I don’t think it was intended to communicate that woman are crazy or hysterical. Maybe, he found a new side to himself, that he thought he was incapable of. It did take a lot of destruction and death in order for him to just be alright with crying. I agree with the statement about the daughters adopting his “manly” traits. Their actions were cool and calculated, without regards to any feelings involved, and they planned to trick and con their way to getting what they want. In a way, this play may be praising the feminine traits that Kahn defined as vulnerability and dependence, because that’s when Lear comes to realize the error of his ways, and with this realization came the maturity that Lear had been lacking. As the daughters take on the manly traits they screw everyone over and end up being murdered at the end, which could have been Lear’s fate, but he ends up with his most loyal daughter, which is where he belonged in the first place.
ReplyDeleteI agree that King Lear found his feminine side and by doing this he was able to understand the feelings that Cordelia was unable to express when told to profess her love in the beginning. I think by finding his feminine side he also learned to have compassion. At one point in the play, he felt sorry for the beggars that he never gave charity to and was willing to give them what he had on him at the time. I think that was where I realized things had changed for him. He was in the middle of a storm without any shelter and Goneril and Regan didn’t care. I don’t think he was actually even “mad” at that point. Maybe the realization of how cold Goneril and Regan were made him “mad” because he realized they were like him. Lear was serious and unable to show his emotions and in the end he realized his wrong doings and how childish he was in asking his children to profess their love. I never actually thought about losing his mind and showing emotions being related to a woman but it makes total sense. Looking back, I think it’s kind of offensive. Why couldn’t he just show his emotions and not become “mad” or hysterical. Again, I think his “madness” came from the realization of how terrible his daughters were to him and how foolish he was to believe them. I also agree that it took losing his daughters to make him realize guarding his emotions was ridiculous and didn’t make him any less of a man. I think that Goneril and Regan were more like their father and were power hungry and Cordelia may have possibly been more like her mother and softer and able to be emotional, which may have been why she was his favorite.
ReplyDeleteI,too struggled with how how to begin my blog. The book was also a very slow start for me as well. However, once I began reading it, I found myself wondering what would happen next. Kahn's interpretation of Lear finding his feminine side, in order to connect with his daughters, I have a bit of reservation. I considered the source and the time period we were discussing hoping to connect his way of thinking with that of modern-day thought processes. I felt that Lear was a product of his time and that of his barbaic ancestors where women didn't appear to have much of a voice and sort of had a particular place in life according to the way monks and monasteries viewed them. I am not in agreement with that. I thought you raised an interesting point when you raised the question, does accepting feminine qualities deem women as insane or cause women to go insane. Kudos! On the other hand, I believe Lear could have could have established a more humanistic relationship with his daughters had he been more willing to accept the role women have in society. In doing so, I don't believe it meant his acceptance of his fate was equivalent to exhibiting female characteristics. I thought it went along the idea of human nature. Keep in mind I do not proclaim to have the answer, and this is nothing more than my own speculation. I posed the question to Dr. Watson on last Wednesday, if he thought Goneril and Regan's actions resulted from their past. I believe heredity (genes)is vital in understanding why the daughters behave in the manner in which they behaved. I also wondered if Cordelia's behavior might have been similar to that of her mother's. Did she resemble someone Lear had a profound love for? I enjoyed your writing and had some of the same questions you had.
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