Lear (Themes)

Themes

Parents and Children

In Lear Bond provides a picture of a family that has disintegrated. In the very first scene of the play, Bond portrays hostility between Lear and his daughters. Bodice and Fontanelle reveal to their father that they will marry his enemies, the Duke of North and the Duke of Cornwall, then tear down Lear’s wall. Lear responds in kind, telling them he has always known of their maliciousness. When Lear leaves the stage, Bodice and Fontanelle reveal their plans to attack their father’s army. Lear and his daughters are literally at war with one another; when presented with Lear’s death warrant, Fontanelle eagerly signs it. At his trial Lear seems to reject his children altogether, saying he has no daughters.

Yet in prison, Lear shows a desire for a relationship with his children. Lear asks the Ghost to bring him his daughters who, he now says, will help him. Apparitions of the daughters as young girls appear, and the audience is given the sense of happier, more peaceful times. The daughters are afraid of being in prison, but Lear comforts them. When they say they must leave, Lear begs them to stay. Lear realizes that at some point in the past his daughters were kind, lovable people. Later, when Fontanelle is killed and autopsied, the procedure reveals to Lear that his daughter is flesh and bone and not some evil beast in human guise.

Lear is awed by the beauty and purity of the inside of Fontanelle’s body. He sees no maliciousness, no evil, there, just base human matter. He says that if he had known how beautiful Fontanelle was, he would have loved her. “Did I make this — and destroy it?” he asks. It is only at the autopsy that Lear realizes that he is responsible for the evil in his daughters. He has shaped their personalities and behavior. They learned all of their cruelty, greed, and thirst for power from him. There is an inherent connection between the children and the parent who nurtured their development, and Lear can no longer see himself as simply the victim of his daughters’ evil. Lear and his daughters are inextricably bound together. By the time Lear realizes this, however, it is too late. Both daughters are dead, and he cannot change the past. The disintegrated family cannot be rebuilt. Lear must live with his guilt.

Violence and Power

In his preface to Lear Bond states, “I write about violence as naturally as Jane Austen wrote about manners.” For Bond, violence is an integral part of contemporary society; writing about modern culture means writing about violence. Lear begins and ends with violence. In the first scene, Lear shoots a worker who has accidentally caused another worker’s death; in the last scene, a soldier shoots and kills Lear. In between, there are numerous acts of brutality. Warrington’s tongue is cut out, he is tortured, and knitting needles are shoved into his ears. The innocent Gravedigger’s Boy is shot, and his wife is raped. Even as a Ghost, the Gravedigger’s Boy suffers a second violent death, this time an attack by pigs. Fontanelle is shot and Bodice is gored by soldiers. Numerous minor characters also die violent deaths.

Aside from the violence, there are scenes depicting graphic gore. The autopsy of Fontanelle and the blinding of Lear are among the most horrifying scenes in recent literature. As traumatic as watching Bond’s violent scenes may be for the audience, however, it is important to note that these scenes are not mere titillation or sensationalism; Bond uses the violence in Lear, as well as in his other plays, to highlight the violence of modern society. His interest is not simply in the violence itself, but in the circumstances that provoke such savagery in both reality and fiction.

Most of the violence in Lear is directly related to the desire for power. When the first worker is shot in Act I, the audience immediately realizes a connection between Lear’s power and the violence that has repeatedly been used in the formation of his regime. Supposedly horrified by Lear’s violence, Bodice and Fontanelle revolt against their father, but once in power, they are every bit as violent as he. One might expect Cordelia, originally one of the oppressed masses, to also govern without violence, but, once in power, she is as ruthless as Lear and his daughters. Although the rulers change, their policies of governing through violence remain the same. The very structure of this society is violent. It is Bond’s intention that the audience see the violence of Lear’s society as a reflection of its own time. Through recognition of its own savagery, society may change.

Transformation

Lear begins the play as a violent man, a ruthless king. His rancor is immediately highlighted when he shoots one worker who has accidentally killed another. The crime, in Lear’s view, is not in taking an innocent life, but in delaying the building of the wall. Although the king, when he talks of his people in the abstract, speaks of his duty to protect them, as individuals their lives mean nothing to him. As the play progresses — and his circumstances change — Lear begins to perceive things differently. When his daughters’ revolution succeeds, he flees to the countryside, where he meets the Gravedigger’s Boy, who generously feeds him and gives him sanctuary.

Lear witnesses the human ability to forgive when the Boy tells him of the subjects’ suffering caused by the building of the wall and yet allows the deposed king to stay. Lear’s education in suffering is continued when he sees the Boy killed, his wife raped, and their livestock killed. His imprisonment by his daughters also teaches him about pain. In prison, Lear develops feelings of protectiveness toward the Ghost. Also in prison, Lear’s observation of Fontanelle’s autopsy helps him to further see the damage for which he is responsible. At this point, when he is beginning to see, Lear is blinded.

The blind Lear is released and meets the farmer, his wife, and their son; Lear now truly sees their suffering and longs to end it. He begins to live among the people and endangers his own life by offering sanctuary to all who need it and by speaking out against Cordelia’s regime. Lear’s last act is his attempt to tear down the wall, an attempt that will clearly fail, and he dies in this symbolic act. Violence and evil still reign. Yet, in Lear’s transformation and virtuous final act, an example for positive change has been presented.

Topics for Further Study

• Discuss the difference between William Shakespeare’s King Lear and Bond’s Lear. In what ways has Bond changed Shakespeare’s play? What might be the significance of those changes? Consider especially Bond’s characterizations of Lear and Cordelia.
• Compare Lear to Oedipus in Sophocles’s play Oedipus Rex. Compare the blinding of Oedipus to that of Lear. How does blindness work as a metaphor in each play?
• Using Machiavelli’s The Prince as a resource, discuss the nature of political power. How is power obtained and maintained? Is it possible to seek power in an ethical manner? How do individuals seek and secure power today?
• Research Bertolt Brecht’s concepts of epic theater and the alienation effect. How does Bond employ Brecht’s concepts in Lear?
• While some critics consider Lear’s final act of digging up his wall futile, others have seen purpose in it. Given that Lear knows that he cannot destroy the wall and that he almost certainly will die if he tries, what could be his purpose in the attempt? Is anything achieved by Lear’s defiance?