Studying Theme – Power


he desires. While her behaviour might seem cold to a modern audience, Cordelia is on the side of right. The love test debases and degrades those who take part and Cordelia is correct to point out the folly of it. She also shows courage and honour when she tells Burgundy that she does not wish to be his wife if he only desires her dowry, and when she insists that France know she is not at fault despite being banished. Cordelia possesses great moral power, and later in the play when she has the military power of the French army behind her, it seems that Cordelia may at last have a chance to gain control of the kingdom and depose her sisters. It is important, though, that Cordelia points out she only wants to do this to restore her father to the throne and not because she has any desire to rule: ‘No blown ambition doth our arms incite / But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.’ The Cordelia we meet at the end of the play seems to have lost the feistiness and independence of the young woman who stood up to her father and scorned the man who would not marry her without a dowry. Now she is a dutiful, obedient, saintly woman whose only wish is to serve her father in any way she can. She has, in essence, become a far more powerless and acceptable Jacobean woman than she was at the start. Consider Lear’s praise of her after she has been hanged: ‘Her voice was ever soft, / Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.’ That is certainly not how Cordelia could have been described in Act 1 Scene 1.


Lear makes a terrible mistake when he hands over his power to Goneril, Regan and their husbands. He has no appreciation of how little control he will have over anything – including his own life – from this point on. His attitude when he arrives at Goneril’s palace with his knights shows that he still believes he is in charge, calling for his dinner to be served immediately and acting as if he were head of the household. The steward Oswald, on Goneril’s orders, treats Lear with disrespect, walking away when Lear calls him to come back. Lear asks Oswald if he knows who he is and Oswald replies, ‘My lady’s father’. Lear is outraged, but Oswald’s point is actually a fair one. Lear is simply the queen’s father now, whether he likes it or not. The Fool tries to show Lear the reality of the situation in a series of riddles and jokes, comparing Lear to a fool: ‘All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with.’ The Fool believes he is actually better off than Lear: ‘I am a fool, thou art nothing.’


Goneril and Regan have none of Cordelia’s moral fibre or what Shakespeare’s audience would have considered appropriately feminine attributes. They are motivated by a selfish desire for power and driven to acts of great cruelty and violence against their father. Neither do they respect their husbands as would have been expected, but lust after Edmund instead. Goneril goes so far as to plot to kill her husband in order to be free to marry Edmund. They become ever more unwomanly as the play progresses: despite the fact that women were not meant to wield weapons, Regan takes up a sword to strike the servant who fatally wounded Cornwall. Goneril, when confronted by Albany with evidence of her plot to murder him, says scornfully, ‘the laws are mine, not thine. / Who can arraign me for’t?’ Power, in her eyes, is a license to do as she pleases. It is easy to see why a Shakespearean audience would have applauded Lear’s denunciation of the sisters as ‘unnatural hags’.


Lear abused his power in a number of ways: insisting on the love test, disowning Cordelia, banishing Kent and placing Goneril, Regan and their husbands in charge of the kingdom. Ironically, it is only when he no longer has any authority that Lear learns what the true duties of a ruler should be. As he wanders through the storm, the old king appreciates the suffering of his subjects at last and realises that he has not taken sufficient care of them. (For more on this aspect of power, see the notes on social justice on page 303.)


In the final moments of the play, Lear’s standing is at last partly redeemed. He is reunited with Cordelia and, before he dies, made king once more. Tragically, all of this comes too late to save him and his beloved Cordelia. Lear and his subjects suffer greatly due to his abuse of power and his decision to relinquish that power.


Leaving Certificate English Excellence in Texts


309


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