In Linda Bamber’s essay, The Woman Reader in King Lear”, the author attempts to prove that women can identify with King Lear through a character which she creates and calls “the Other”. The “Other” is a combination of the evil of sister’s Goneril and Regan and the quiet but otherwise perfect Cordelia. When combined the three women create a force of nature that eventually the King must yield to.
Bamber does an excellent job identifying this “Other” by proving that the women combined are not unlike nature itself, breaking the King as the storms broke him. “They are like the rock on which the hero is broken and remade; they are the thing outside the self that cannot be cannot be controlled and cannot be renounced. ” She continues that this “Other” gives a drastic contrast to the King, which makes the drama, “…the feminine causes suffering, appears evil, and may actually be evil.”
It is when this “Other” brings its force against Lear that he finally breaks down and can no longer rule—in this moment we see the tragedy of the play. The “Other” is also helpful in highlighting the dissatisfaction the King receives in not always getting what he desires. Here I think the argument weakens a little, but still drives the point home. There is a sexual tension that comes to surface between the King and his daughters (most notably in the way that he denounces them, more like lover than father) and allows the King to Fuhrman 2 change from the angry evil madman to a broken man dying on a wish.
Overall, through solid example’s from Lear and contrast to Shakespeare’s other works, Bamber is able to make a solid case for her theory. Certainly it is obvious that the female aspect of the play (even that of a ‘female’ nature) are some to blame in the madness of Lear, but one might also argue that the King’s own poor choices caused his loss of power and eventual madness.
Margot Heinemann in her essay ‘Demystifying the Mystery of State’: King Lear and the World Upside Down, the author proves that King Lear is a political play. Through examples and contrasts of other Shakespearean works, Heinemann shows that King Lear is about individual loss of power as well as the “the complete breakdown of a social and political system…” Heinemann believes that by creating contrasts between absolutes, that the problem of the times is highlighted.
She supports this with examples that show the contrast of madness and folly in the King, clothes and nakedness, sight and blinding, power and justice and injustices and, of course, the have and have-nots. She works with theories of upside-down power throughout the essay and pushes this point to the end where she claims the ultimate show of this upside-down world is the King becoming the fool. This essay forces the reader to reimagine Lear through a political lens and realize that it is indeed probable and perhaps even fitting today.
