The Immaturity of King Lear Essay

King Lear is thought to be one of Shakespeares most difficult plays. In King Lear, Shakespeare offers a world where the natural and unnatural are intertwined, appearances and self-perception are confused, and wordswritten and spokenare deceptive. In King Lear, appearances, station, and how what others think influences our actions are examined through relationships found in family and service: father and child; nobleman and servant. Even though we believe that what we look like and what we say are reflections of who we are. Shakespeare, in King Lear, shows that appearances and words are ever deceiving and are not clear indications of the soul or the mind. Even though Goneril and Regan are of noble birth, they hardly show noble souls; and although Lear can hardly be considered to have a fair countenance, he does develop a most fair and loving soul.

One of the arguments suggesting that King Lear in fact does have a real soul is due to his apparent love for his daughter Cordelia; therefore the presence of his soul is arguably- never in question. What however is in question is his maturity: although a king his mind seemed to work very much like a childs, and this idea is confirmed by his method of measuring which daughter deserves the bounteous "dower," for which he calls upon them to speak of their love for him. Which of you shall we say doth love us most? This very much reflects the mindset of a child where it needs to hear some kind of an expression of love, in order to choose their favourite parent. However where Lears two older daughters (Goneril and Regan) are very much aware of this and therefore both speak in poetic sonnets referring to their supposedly love for their father as A love that makes breath poor, and speech unable (very much like a parent telling a child what it wants to hear) and therefore are rewarded equally. The youngest of daughters (Cordelia), believing her love's More richer than her tongue., speaks "nothing" and Lear disinherits Cordelia for her untendered feelings and divides the remaining thirdas well as his powerbetween Albany and Cornwall (the husbands of Goneril and Regan). This lack of understanding by Lear of a pure, strong and true bond of love that is beyond words, emphasises his mental immaturity as being very much like a childs he needs words and images (even if it is false) to confirm his beliefs and get rid of any doubts he may have. Therefore it could be argued that King Lears soul was never the issue and the whole reason he was so hurt by Cordelias inability to express her love for him was due to the fact that he cared a great deal for her. The problem however arises from his lack of thought and immaturity, where he acts in the moment and makes decisions which results in not only his downfall, but also the death of the Cordelia (the true innocent soul amidst the corrupt beings).

Lears basic flaw at the beginning of the play is that he values appearances above reality. He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesnt want to fulfil a kings obligations of governing for the good of his subjects. Similarly, his test of his daughters demonstrates that he values a flattering public display of love over real love. He doesnt ask which of you doth love us most, but rather, which of you shall we say doth love us most? Therefore it could be argued that although Lear may not completely have been Soul less at the beginning of the play, he certainly did not have the purest of all souls and this imperfection was attached to a puerile intellect, due to his apparent fascination at parading his processions to the world, including his daughter. This behaviour is thought to be very puerile in the sense that it is very much like a child to want to show off its new toys or just boast about a particular event in order to get some kind of recognition from others (i.e. the kingdom). An important question then will be to ask is whether Lear develops as a character or whether he learns from his mistakes and becomes a better and more insightful human being. The answer to that I suppose would be yes up to an extent: he realizes his weakness and insignificance in comparison to the awesome forces of the natural world, he becomes a humble and caring individual. He comes to cherish Cordelia above everything else and to place his own love for Cordelia above every other consideration, to the point that he would rather sing like birds i' the cage rather than sing like a free bird. But although he develops as a character in terms of his soul his child like mind stays very much the same, but it becomes almost an insane kind of childishness and he never does recover his sanity and emerge as a better king, which is rather tragic in itself. However King Lear could technically be argued to be just a foolish character then soulless and puerile, due to his blind, foolish betrayal of Cordelias love for him, which reinforces the idea that at the heart of every betrayal lays a skewed set of values.

Insanity occupies a central place in the play and is associated with both disorder and hidden wisdom. The fact that Lear himself goes mad, mirrors the chaos in this novel but also shows that all of his lifes sins and mistake have now caught up with him, suggesting that he always had a conscience and therefore a soul but never truly used it until he came to terms with reality. This crash of reality is represented by the storm in act 3, which echoes Lears inner turmoil and mounting madness: it is a physical, turbulent natural reflection of Lears internal confusion which leads him to recognize his own mortality and therefore is a direct Pathetic fallacy. Ironically however an insane Lear is able to open his mind and heart a great deal more than a sane version of Lear could do, and therefore suggesting that his soul may always have been present but due to his ignorance it was gone unnoticed until the occurrence of the storm which almost is a metaphorical representation of the fool and therefore a voice of intellect, reason and truth.

Therefore taking all that I have written into account I feel that the character of King Lear was never really soulless but did lack mental maturity at the beginning of the play, however during the course of the play we see him loose his sanity but because of this he comes to understand the weakness of human nature, the emptiness of royal claims to power, and the similarity of all human beings.