AP Lit Essay #1

 One definition of madness is “mental delusion or the eccentric behavior arising from it.” But Emily Dickinson wrote “Much madness is divinest sense to a discerning eye.” Novelists and playwrights have often seen madness with a “discerning eye”. Select a novel or play in which as character’s apparent madness or irrational behavior plays an important role. Then write a well-organized essay in which you explain what this delusion or eccentric behavior consists of and how it might be judged reasonable. Explain the significance of the “madness” to the work as a whole. Do not merely summarize the plot.

King Lear, the eponymous protagonist of Shakespeare’s King Lear, a purely objective, ‘undiscerning’ eye, would at first appear extremely foolish, and at points, purely mad. However, as the play progresses , the characterisation of Lear deepens, we are led to view him under a more sympathetic gaze.

The play starts in a setting reminiscent to a fairy tale- with the foolish King Lear deciding to divide his kingdom among his three daughters in proportion to their love of him. Lear, the foolish figure and misled father, gives the kingdom to his evil elder daughters who make grandiose, false, proclamations of love. He disowns his truly loving younger daughter who ‘refuses to put her heart in her mouth’, and make insincere declarations. He is characterised as arrogant and is said to ‘have only ever slenderly known himself.’

However Shakespeare shows us other aspects of his character, of the man he was in other people’s reactions to him.

Lear was formerly powerful man, a true king, universally categorised as proud and bold. He has inspired deep loyalty and respect in there hearts of many, such as the Duke of Albany, the Duke of Gloucester and more. A man of strength and stubbornness, a man of his own mind, he has never had to bend to anyone.

He hence does not ‘age gracefully’- and refuses to relinquish control, as expected of him in his old age. There are many references to his age, and Lear is often described as ‘white bearded’.

However deceitful elder daughters, Regan and Goneril, do not provide him with the respect he deserves, instead taking the opportunity of his age to wrest power from his hands. They refuse to let him keep a retinue, and, when Lear rebels, they throw him out of the castle. Lear is discarded, and left to weather nature’s elements. He experiences tremendous, impotent rage and grief. He rages against nature, deciding to let it storm around him. He makes vicious vitriolic, increasingly deranged speeches, decrying all. In the peak of his insanity, he hallucinates bringing Goneril and Regan to justice, trying them in an imaginary court, in a represent

In contrast with his previous pride and status, now his daughters have abandoned him, he is homeless, practically a beggar.

But other than Regan and Goneril, he also battles age, and mortality - ‘ his hands are soiled with mortality’. Agreeing and mortality are truly unconquerable, even for him. 
The wheel of fortunes as turned, and Lear is now ‘fortune’s fool’. He realises he is nothing without his power- all the respect he commanded when on the throne is nothing. “Even a dog in power is obeyed.’

He, in losing his power, has lost his very identity. He has almost whatever once defined him, leaving a void filled by insanity.

Against these unstoppable forces, against the fickle hand of fortune, under his own loss of identity- Lear’s sanity truly crumbles. His madness is a coping mechanism, an escape from a world that he cannot understand or control any more.

He is a man who has lost everything he ever cherished, his power, his control and his beloved daughter Cordelia.

Lear has thus a very clear reason for his madness, and Shakespeare portrays him twith a sympathetic, ‘discerning’ gaze- a gaze that reveals the reason for his madness.

Lear’s initial pride and foolishness, and then his descent into madness, complete the bleak picture the play paints. The play ends on a very poignant note, with most of the the cast, evil and good alike, killed. Lear is a tragic figure and in his world, filled with pointless power-struggle, the only fate are madness and death.

Lear’s madness adds to tragic landscape of the play, which started as whimsically as a fairy tale, and ended in brutal, pointless, maddening bloodshed.