Error of Judgment: The Real Cause of all Nuts on Earth!

By JH Sayyar

King Lear is one of the best plays of Shakespeare. Sometimes it is called a historical social tragedy. However, in the broader sense it is tragedy of Lear’s optimistic mood as hamlet is the tragedy of moral frustration. Shakespeare’s Lear is considered half-sensible and half lunatic. According to Shakespeare that old age is the second childhood. Shakespeare shows various types of lunacy in Lear’s character. His hasty decision is the main cause of his madness. As the text shows that when Cordelia tells him true her heart desires so Lear speaks in these words:

“Here I proclaim all my paternal care

Propinquity and property of blood

And as a stranger to my heart and me

And thou my sometime daughter.”

Lear is the leading character of the play but fond of oily tongue and flattery. Here Prof. Joad says.” Flattery and jealousy both the essential parts of human nature.” In the beginning Lear is optimistic, in the middle full of ego, and at the end Lear is full of pride and obduracy. However we nay call Lear a lunatic titanic figure who wants to enjoy two pleasures at one time: be powerless and enjoyment. It was quite impossible in real life. Lear’s wrath dominates the whole play from the beginning till end. As the text shows:

“We have divided

In three our Kingdom and it is our first intent

To shake all care and business from our age.”

keeping in mind the textual lines we may say that Lear’s madness is situational but these things make Lear lunatic: wrong judgment, obduracy, optimistic mood, pride, self love, and old age dream. Discarding Cordelier from all paternal cares he says in these words to him falling in trouble:

‘I shall have such revenge on you both

That the entire world shall… I will do such things…

What they are yet I know not, they shall be

The terror of the earth.”

Lear s ruled by optimism because in the beginning he could not make difference between the appearance and reality. The oily tongues of his daughters make him mentally blind for a short time. He was not ready to listen to the truth from the mouth of Cordelier. When Cordelier says an asking:

“Good my Lord

You have brought me, bread me, and love me,

Return these duties back as right fit

Obey you, love you, and most honour you.”

Cordelier speech appeals to reason but Lear considers reality his mock and ingratitude and curses her. He is the slave of his passion and it is mental disease. Here Lily says, “ All the heroes of Shakespeare are the slave of emotions and neglect reason making doubt on it like Lear, Hamlet, and General Macbeth…” Lear’s mental conflict starts with his hasty division of his Kingdom ignoring Cordelier knowingly.

“For, as I am a man, I think this lady

to be my child Cordelia, Cordelia so I am, I am

Lear, be your tears wet/ yest, faith, I pray, weep not”

If you have passions for me, I will drink it

You have some cause, they have not, Cordelia no cause.”

Having been dethroned Lear, the chameleon nature of Lear’s daughters appears who are not ready to accept her father as guest at the palace with one hundred nights. Their cruel behavior makes Lear’s mind mad. That is why Lear thinks spending night in the storm is better than staying at the palace of his daughters. On the other hand the Fool tries to make Lear happy and sings a song for Lear just to remind him his past mistake of dividing the Kingdom and ignoring Cordelia. The songs words are these:

“Then sudden joy did weep

And I for sorrow sung

That such a kind should play be- peep

And go to the fools among.”

The Fool’s sayings strike the King’s mind and now Lear is compelled to think that he had done a mistake. Here Adam Deed says, ”Sometimes Lear seems to be a complete fool because he goes to Regan for bread and butter is his the second mistake because the first has rejected him. Looking at their behavior the king Exclaimed in these words: “ I shall go mad.”

Beside the Fool there is the other companion under the name of Caius, the banished Kent who serves the king from the beginning till the end of the play, even in the prison. At the end Lear comes to know that he is his banished Kent.

He says that the stars hanging over us governing our fat but Lear is not able to understand the Fool’s saying. The banished Kent and Cordelia at the ending hours are present in the prison and Lear dies before them according to the laws of nature. Edgar at the end kills Edmund, thus his fails, and he has to lick the dust in the battlefield. At last Edgar is declared the king of the state. All die without getting any heart desire.

To sum up, Lear’s madness was partly apparent and partly real. He is not a fully mad

character, although different types of shocks make him mad but the main cause of his

madness is wrong judgment and hasty division of the Kingdom unequally among his daughters. Shakespeare shows social injustice of the society in he was living. On the other hand he shows human nature more jealous and greedier and injustice maker if it has power. Lear’s wrath was natural because he has power and daughters and had no son due to which it occurs.

Lear considered them his old age support but his idea proved wrong at the end not in the beginning. It is a fact that always truth wins later or soon. At the end Lear accepts his mistake proves that human nature is fond of making experience bases on the past experience. We want to make them wrong but every time we fail doing so in practical life as Lear fails in his mission…Gerrymander says in his famous book, The Visit of Hamlet’s Mind.