Sunday, November 11, 2012

King Lear and the Role of Fate

Throughout King Lear, fate plays various roles.  Some characters believe in a predetermined life and blame fate for their misfortune, while others laugh at the idea of fate.  Also, while some elements of the plot seem destined, others seem to be caused by the characters’ free will. 
                When Edmund plots to take his father’s inheritance, he turns his father against his younger brother, Edgar, in order to gain Gloucester’s favor.  Edmund makes it seem like Edgar is plotting to kill his father, so that he can have the inheritance to himself, which he would not have had originally because he is an illegitimate son.  Gloucester blames the nearing eclipse and alignment of the stars for his bad fortune of his youngest son “betraying” him.  He believes that some higher power, or the bodies of the solar system, has control over his life.  Edmund, on the other hand, laughs at the idea of fate.  He believes it is foolish to think that a higher power, especially the alignment of the stars, controls one’s life.  Nevertheless, it was he who manipulated the fate of his family, not a higher power as Gloucester suspects.
                Many characters use the term “fortune” to describe coincidence, luck, or fate.   King Lear describes the bad fortune of his family splitting apart and considers for a time if it is an act of fate or merely a coincidence.  It seems to be fate that the British win the war at the end, which decides Cordelia and King Lear’s fate of being captured and then dying.  Edmund promises to capture Cordelia and Lear if the British won the war, so it is plausible that a higher power decided that the British would win.  On the other hand, it appears that Goneril and Regan used their free will to destroy their family to gain power and the love of Edmund.  Usually blatantly immoral actions, such as destroying family ties for one’s own gain, poisoning a sister, and committing suicide, are acts of free will.  Goneril and Regan both turned against Lear after falsifying their love for him in order to have their own power, which they decided by their free will.  They were not destined to destroy their family and contribute to the king’s insanity.  It was also not fate or a higher being that decided their deaths. 
                Interestingly, fate and free will work hand in hand to decide the outcome of King Lear.  Although there seems to be more instances of free will than fate, fate does play a significant role in the end.  Most characters, like Gloucester, believe that a higher power controls their lives.  This belief in fate plays an important role in the characters’ lives, which, in turn, makes the reader question if fate really does play as important of a role as the characters believe, or if it is only each character’s free will that decides the outcome.

3 comments:

  1. Hi Jessie,
    Interesting observations on Lear...I was struck by your assessment that some things, like Edmund's manipulations, were a result of free will, while others, like the outcome of the war, seemed to be fated. Why come to that conclusion? Is it that we can clearly observe Edmunds actions, including the cause-effect chain, so it can be traced back to his initial false letter? Shakespeare doesn't always show us the chain; however, but that doesn't mean there weren't causes and human forces at work. And couldn't we say the same thing about this life--that there are so many things we don't understand, and those are the things we often consign to fate, whereas the more immediate, observable things we see as a result of our choices? And even more specifically, we tend to see our own actions, whose consequences we can often observe, as self-propelled, whereas the actions of others we don't see as well. It's an interesting human tendency to want, or need to trace a cause, or reason for everything, especially big events, when they may occur at least partly because of the chaos of the universe. What, for instance, is the cause of childhood cancers? In Lear, we have a tragedy that is so complete in its destruction that it's hard to say, as in Hamlet, for instance, that the country needed to go through that death and rebirth for its own good. There is so little redemption, so many of the good along with the bad who suffer and die, that if these events are fated, they must be, as Lear hints at, the responsibility of a cruel god. How does the ending of this play make you think about fate overall? What do you think was Shakespeare's message on fate? Is he with Edmund, who laughs at it, or with Gloucester?

    ReplyDelete
  2. what is religion of fate in king lear

    ReplyDelete