Reeducating a king:Lear's self Awareness.

RE-EDUCATING A KING: KING LEARS SELF-AWARENESS

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Hangs one that gathers samphire, dreadful wiliness!

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head:

The fisherman that laissez passer along the beach

Appear like mice.

Although this quote from Shakespeares King Lear is made by Poor Tom to his unknowing father Gloucester about the terrain far-off below them, it accurately summarizes the plight of the mad king. Lear is out of spirit with his surroundings, riding high upon the wave of power associated with the monarchy: even those at hand(predicate) to him are out of reach, viewed with a distorted lens system. It is through this lens of madness that Lear views his friends and family, and thus he is stripped of everything before he can realize the folly of his judgment. Reduced to a unbiased man, Lear is forced to learn the lessons that Gods anointed is already supposed to know. This is the purpose of the secondary characters of King Lear; they serve to show the many tortuous facets of Lears complex personality, as they force him to finally get in touching with his self-conscious.

For example, the scatter, oddly enough, acts as the voice of reason for the out-of -touch King. He views events critically and thus seems to foreshadow situations that an ignorant Lear is completely oblivious to.



This is ostensible in act 1, scene 1, when a prodding Fool asks the king if he knows the difference between a acidulated fool and a concoction fool. When Lear admits that he does not, the Fool attempts to write down it all out in front of him:

That lord which councelled thee

To receive away thy land,

Come place him here by me;

Do thou for him stand.

The sweet and bitter fool

Will presently appear;

The one in alter here,

The...

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