The usual method of analyzing Shakespeare’s characters is to tabulate what they say and do, and add what other characters say about them. Though this is possible method and one which occupies a prominent place in the Shakespearean critical tradition known as ‘character criticism’, it can be misleading as it starts from the wrong end. Shakespeare did not begin by inventing characters and then search for a suitable plot to embody them. His characters are largely defined by their roles or by their functions in the plot. This definition of a role by circumstances is obvious with the fool in King Lear, who is basically the traditional Fool, a truth-teller. He is also, equally obvious, a splendid part of the comic actor of Shakespeare’s stage, Robert Armin, fresh from his triumphs in as You Like It and Twelth Night. Our impressions of the characters depend very largely on the close relationship between him and Lear. Shakespeare does not tell us everything; for example, we are not told what happens to him after the storm scenes in Act III. During the storm the Fool labours to outjest Lear’s injuries, but in earlier scenes his devotion to Cordelia makes him harp on Lear’s foolishness in distinguishing her.
Lear’s response to Cordelia’s non-rational rejection of an assessing process that would have made her rich is to brand his daughter ‘foolish’ in the extreme. By that token, he is also links her with ‘official’ representative of foolishness in the play. Terrence Hawkes has pointed out that two kinds of reasons are in operation in the world of King Lear; instrumental reason and a process which is intuitive. This instrumental reason is the one applied by lear to judge cordelia’s refusal to outbid her sisters in expressing love for their father. From the point of view this instrumental, lower reason , intuitive reason often appears as a kind of madness or foolishness, in which the apparently irrational proves capable of genuine insight. While Cordelia is banished from Lear’s sight the Fool remains serving to a large extent as the representative of the pole opposed to reason and in Cordelia’s absence, as its most effective voice the fact that Cordelia and the Fool never appear on the stage together- added to the fact that all female parts on the Elizabathan stage were in any case played by males- suggests that their linking could easily be reinforced if the part were ‘doubled’, if Cordelia and the Fol were seen transparently, to be played by the same actor.
The Term Paper on King Lear Cordelia Gloucester Play
King Lear: Sequences Which Display The Varying Perceptions of Different Characters In Shakespeare's King Lear, there are several sequences which display the varying perceptions of different characters. The perceptions of the characters often differs because of what they are able to see and also in their nature. Such factors obstruct their vision, not allowing them to see clearly. One sequence ...
Be that as it may, the Fool nevertheless makes certain that the point of view for which Cordelia stands in the play is maintained when she is off-stage. As a result, once Cordelia is banished, the Fool’s presence in Lear’s company becomes pervasive. Rising above the level of direct influence on the plot, he begins to function almost as a chorus to the action, commenting sometimes obliquely, sometimes almost directly on its developments in terms of an ‘intuitive’ non-rationally which quite starkly points out that reality and the consequences of Lea’s actions: “ Thou hadest little wit in thy crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away.” Time and again the Fol presents Lear with grotesque overriding paradox that results from hhis aaction when the King shows himself to be a fool, then the Fool has a good claim to be a King. The two fools – the one in motley who sees the truth and the other, wearing the crown, who is blind to it – confront each other; and the point is materially and visually made Lear, although rational, is foolish. The Fool, non rational, is wise. It is thus not inappropriate that Lear’s angry “Dost thou call me fool boy?” meets with the riposte draws Kent’s perceptive comment, “Thus is not altogether fool, my lord.” The Fool’s mockery of Lear’s arrogant mathematics is relentless, pointing directly to the crime that Lear has committed in equating the valve of Lord land with that of love.
The Essay on The Fool And Cordelia Opposing Influences On King Lear
... sanity. Another commonality between the Fool and Cordelia is their honesty. Both the Fool and Cordelia are frank with Lear, though he may not always ... th' cage" (5. 3. 10). In the first Act, Lear asks a very pointed question, "Who is it that can tell me ... who I am?" (1. 4. 236). The Fool, honest as always ...
The Fool asks Lear, “Can you make no use of nothing?” When replies that “nothing can be made out of nothing.” The Fool asks Kent to explain this to Lear for “he will not believe a fool..” These words of the fool could be Lear’s motto, for they contain the essence of his tragedy, referring both to the Fool himself and to Cordelia. Perhaps Lear recognizes their unity right at the end of the play. By then, completely irrational, he enters with the dead Cordelia in his arms and showing her body, announces that “my poor fool is hanged.”
