Aging and Hubris, Jenny Ge, Helen Shen, Jason Zhang, Douglas Zhang [phonics reader TXT] 📗

throne for more than eighty years. Nobody dares to challenge his authorities. His two old daughters, Goneril and Regan, do realize the unusual longevity of their father. They speak of it and coax and humour him. Cordelia, being the youngest and doesn't take notice of the fact that King Lear hubris is unmatched with his physicality and his age, refuses to flatter a man as unpredictable as he is passionate, and that results in her ruin.

CORDELIA
Nothing, my lord.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? (1.1.101-102)

Words marked by Cordelia point directly at the slyness of her sisters. King Lear, on the other hand, swooned by the flatteries, doesn't sense the hypocrisy of Goneril and Regan's statement.

King Lear's hubris makes him willingly blinded towards the blandishments but also makes him detest sincere warnings. He also detests hearing preaching over his wrongdoings, especially at the connection that Kent draws between his old age and his follies:

KENT
When Lear is mad. What wilt thou do, old man?
Think'st thou that duty shall have dread to speak,
When power to flattery bows? (1.1.146-150)

As he casts off his most loyal servant Kent for chiding him of being irresistant towards flatteries, we can already foresee the upcoming apocalypse. Lear's hubris that blinds himself by the saccharine flatteries and refrains himself from taking wise advice is what leads to his very own tragedy.

Lear's hubris does not simply wither away as he abdicates his throne. In the later scenes, he still wishes to retain the outward glories of his rule. In Act I Scene four, Lear is confronted by Oswald who rudely replied to Lear's inquiry of Goneril. This induces Lear to strike him. The witted Fool quickly spots the real problem with Lear, that is, Lear's love of honours combining with his growing feebleness makes him wish to escape King's responsibilities while at the same time maintaining a king's state. However, Lear is oblivious to the impossibility of his wish, his weakness towards flattery as well as his choleric temper due to his hubris as a king. Fool points out:

Fool
Mark it, nuncle.
Have more than thou showest,
Speak less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest,
Leave thy drink and thy whore
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalt have more
Than two tens to a score. (1.4.120-130)

Fool tries to preach King Lear to step backwards a bit and make some rational decisions. But King Lear is so drowned in the hubris as king that he is heedless towards the impending danger of his arrogance. He retorts with:

LEAR
Why no, boy. Nothing can be made out of nothing. (1.4.135-136)

LEAR
A bitter fool. (1.4.140)

His inflated hubris forbids him of taking wise advice, but this only results in his own doom. In Act II, when he becomes homeless and tries to seek aid from his daughters, he grows increasingly enraged at the curtailment of the knights that he would be allowed to bring. In the end his daughters refuse to allow him any servants or knights, without which it wouldn't make him a legitimate king. Hanging onto his last bit of authority, Lear is greatly traumatized for his hubris simply can't except this treatment. But in his very helpless state the hubris would only result in him cursing and going off insane.

His vitality is unmatched with his actual age, and therefore he starts off with a behemothic ego. The trauma that he suffers accelerates his aging process and consumes his hubris. Since the start of the play his authorities are challenged by subjects below him on a Great Chain of Being, and every time he bursts into anger, which nibbles away the remnant of strength from a sixty-five year old entering dotage. If we follow the logic, by the time when he isn't allowed any servants which is the greatest humiliation ever happened to him that will basically bereave himself of the king's title, on the mental level his last bit of self-esteem will finally crack down, and that turns his kingly fury at Cordelia and Kent into unmanly tears before Regan and Goneril.

The hamartia, the tragic flaw, is his hubris, and in the later acts turns Lear into a half conscious man. Meanwhile Lear learns the true intentions of his daughters. Begging them simply won't resolve his quagmire. Therefore his hubris returns at the subconscious level for revenge, haunting in his mind as he claims he could see Goneril and Regan in hell. He even puts the souls of his daughters on trial to determine their crimes.

LEAR
It shall be done. I will arraign them straight.
(to EDGAR) Come, sit thou here, most learnèd justicer.
(to FOOL)
Thou, sapient sir, sit here.—Now, you she-foxes—(3.6.20-24)

Lear's kingly hubris wouldn't let him surrender to his fate. Rather, his hubris still wants to bring justice to condemn the wolf like daughters. His extreme hatred incurred by his hubris turns imagination into partial reality. Lear's madness is paused by his seeming cure under the loving ministrations of Cordelia. He becomes more rational than ever. He realizes that Cordelia is indeed who loved him the most, but we can still spot his undying hubris even at his very moment of death:

LEAR
A plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!
I might have saved her. Now she’s gone for ever.
Cordelia, Cordelia, stay a little. Ha?
What is ’t thou say’st?—Her voice was ever soft,
Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.(5.3.271-276)

This prevents him from living alone in this world. He sees Cordelia's lips moving and breath starting. But then that is only his hallucinations, a manifestation of his zealous wish. But in a sense he is seeing the world clearer than ever. He understands Cordelia's diligent love for him, but this love seems too heavy to bear: she is banished by Lear and still comes back for his rescue, and this love cannot be paid back since Cordelia is already dead. Therefore, Lear dies to leave the world so that he can reach her at the other end.

Gloucester and Edmund

This play contains an inter-related main plot and also a sub-plot; Lear being the tragic hero and the protagonist of the main-plot, while his loyal nobleman Gloucester plays an equivalent role as Lear in the sub-plot. Gloucester was introduced in the very beginning of this play, where Lear was deciding the plan to divide his kingdom. Gloucester, being one of the most elderly Earls, had the responsibility to assist Lear with his decisions. Aside from the social hierarchy, Gloucester’s fate is in many ways parallel to that of Lear. Both Gloucester and Lear are old, if measured by Elizabethan science; Gloucester should be well beyond dotage. In many cases, living longer does not mean being more knowledgeable, therefore wiser, and similar to Lear, Gloucester cannot distinguish the difference between true love and flattering or to think otherwise of someone’s motivation. Gloucester has two sons, the legitimate son Edgar who possesses true love towards Gloucester, and the bastard son Edmund, who expresses dissatisfaction with the attitude of society towards bastards and ultimately leads him to develop hatreds towards his legitimate brother Edgar. When Edgar forges a letter and telling Gloucester his legitimate son is going to kill him for the power and position.

“This policy and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times; keeps our fortunes from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, which sways, not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more, if our father would sleep till I walked him you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your brother” (1.2.48-52)

Actually, the first part of the letter covering the opinion on aged people and the power distribution is purely the opinion from Edmund, later in the play, when he had gained total control of power, he delivered a soliloquy:

“This seems a fair deserving, and must draw me that which my father loses-no less than all. The younger rises when the old doth fall” (3.3.24-26)

In Edmund’s mind, young people are more capable of handling great power since they are able to make more right decisions compare to the foolishness of Lear and his own father Gloucester. However, for this to happen, old people like Lear and Gloucester must give up their power to the future generation. Lear has surrendered his power in the beginning of the play, while Gloucester is still reluctant to give up his power, even though he is significantly old. Therefore, Edmund’s greed for power had him plotted the betrayal of Edgar and his own father.

After read the letter, Gloucester was in a shock, this is probably the last thing he hopes to happen to him, his legitimate son betraying him and plots a murder. At this time, Gloucester’s aged brain did not respond with the correct action, without conforming the truthfulness of the letter, he believed that letter and cried out

“O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter, Abhorred villain, unnatural, detested, brutish villain” (1.2.80-81)

Edgar being completely clueless of what is going on, unfortunately, he decided to follow Edmund’s advice, and carry weapons in the court. When Gloucester saw his son Edgar with weapon, all his inner madness came out, and without making any investigation, Gloucester concluded that Edgar, his legitimate son who truly loves him was going to murder him for the title and power. Soon after, Gloucester turned to Edmund, and said

“For him I thank your grace” (2.4 35)

Gloucester believes that Edmund should be the person he can rely on, thus promoting Edmund to Edgar’s position

What Gloucester had done was a total mistake, by promoting a bastard son to replace a legitimate son; Gloucester had alternated the Elizabethan Hierarchy, This will leads to chaos and tragedy. As result proven, after Edmund earned the trust and the power given by Gloucester, his ambition led him to destroy the entire social order, such that King Lear would turn into a beggar.

Aging not only affects the decision making for Gloucester, but also the physical health. In the first chapter, one of the few reasons why Lear gave up his power was because of the stress being a king, and all the fatigue and worry he had to go through. While for Gloucester, this shows when he caught Edgar carrying weapon that was plotted by Edmund.

“O madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked” (2.1.92)

Or when he was about to be punished for treachery

“My poor old heart” (3.7.63)

Whenever Gloucester faces unbearable disappointments, he cries for his physical pain caused by