Friday, April 29, 2011

Everything is Edmund's fault.

Everything is Edmund's fault. That's what I noticed about King Lear. Edmund is the driving force that takes a kingdom that's already a mess and completely destroys it. He ruins his half-brother Edgar's reputation by convincing their father, the Earl of Gloucester, that Edgar want to kill him to get at his estate. Edgar now must take to wondering around in the wilderness disguised as a crazy beggar to interact with the principal characters. Next, since Edmund seems to like betraying his family members so much, he betrays his father. The Earl of Gloucester, upset that King Lear's daughters Goneril and Regan have been abusing their newly-gained power and have been treating their father horribly, sent a letter asking the King of France for help. Edmund shows this letter to Goneril and Regan, which leads to Regan's husband, the Duke of Cornwall, to gouge out the Earl of Gloucester's eyes. He, blind, is also forced to wander around in the wilderness. Eventually, both Goneril and Regan fall for Edmund, as they're all despicable people and I guess evil people like that have a sort of thing for one another. This causes Goneril to plot to kill her husband, the Duke of Albany, so she can have a dead husband like Regan's, as he was killed by a servant in retribution for gouging out the Earl of Gloucester's eyes. Eventually, the French and British armies fight, and King Lear and his third daughter Cordelia are taken prisoners, as Cordelia married the King of France, and King Lear fled to France. Edmund sends an order to have both executed. Finally, in a moment of retribution, Edmund tries to stop the order, but it's too late and Cordelia becomes hanged, with Lear dying shortly later of grief. Oh yeah, and Goneril, poisons her sister and then stabs herself because of Edmund. Fun stuff. Seriously, this guy Edmund is a bastard.

Why does he do all of this, though? Well, his feelings about his situation are summed up in his first soliloquy: “Thou, nature, art my goddess; to thy law / My services are bound. Wherefore should I / Stand in the plague of custom, and permit / The curiosity of nations to deprive me, / For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines / Lag of a brother? Why bastard? wherefore base?” Basically, Edmund is saying that he rejects society's negative view of illegitimate children and says “nature” is his goddess. I think he's pandering to a more “survival of the fittest” approach, based on the actions he takes later in the play. Edmund's mind only changes after his brother finally reveals himself and gives him an ass-kicking that's eventually fatal. Edmund's reply to this beating is: “The wheel is come full circle!” Soon after, Edgar tells Edmund of how their father suffered and Edmund says “This speech of yours hath moved me, / And shall perchance do good...” I figure that what Edmund needed throughout the play was a good beating and a dose of reality to set him into place, as his merciless plotting only came down upon him in the end.

3 comments:

Stephanie said...

I must agree. Edmund certainly does seem to be the catalyst that drives the action of the play. All of his actions seem to have some seriously negative consequences and if it wasn't for him, most of the unfortunate circumstances in the play wouldn't have occurred.

hannahs said...

I'm sorry but i don't agree. Although Edmund is despicable and altogether an evil character he is not really to blame for the entire outcome of the play. I'm not trying to give him a pass for his actions. What he did was wrong and he paid dearly for it in the end. That being said, are we really going to over look the wrongs done by all the other characters and blame them on Edmund? King Lear is the one that defied custom and started the landslide that lead to the downfall of all the principal characters. Glouster's denial of his son in the first place set off Edmund to feel neglected and gave him the need to lash out so that he might improve himself. Let's face it the boy has major daddy issues, not to mention inadequacy problems. Let's not forget about Goneral and Regan. They had free will the entire time and could have chosen to not kill for Edmund and just submit to the other but their pride would not allow that. So yes, Edmund is a bad character, but he is joined by an entire terrible crew. Not one character alone, but together their actions turned king Lear into a tragedy.

Cyrus Mulready said...

Hannah raises some key points here, and you make a good case, Tony, for Edmund's hand in much of what happens through the play. I think we can find compromise (or synthesis) in these points, too. Both characters (Edmund and Lear) are responsible for the breakdown of families. Lear refuses to observe custom, just as Edmund attempts to buck the system that keeps him down. Although we might be more sympathetic toward Edmund's position (at least in the opening) the tragedy seems to be shared by these two catalysts.