Lear (Style)

Style

Epic Theater/Alienation Effect

Twentieth-century playwright Bertold Brecht (The Threepenny Opera) developed the modern concept of the epic theater for use in his political dramas. Unlike conventional drama, epic theater develops from a sequence of many scenes, as in Lear, that often take place over a considerable time period and employ a large number of characters. The continuous movement from scene to scene is meant to keep the audience from becoming too emotionally involved with the characters. This lack of emotional involvement is also developed through Brecht’s alienation effect, which occurs when the audience is continuously made aware that it is not watching reality but a play.

In Lear characters periodically speak to the audience rather than to one another. This sort of speech is called an “aside” and contributes to the alienation effect. When Warrington is tortured, the darkly comic comments of Bodice and Fontanelle remind the audience that this is an exaggerated fiction removed from reality. This is part of the alienation effect as well. The purpose of this method is to force the audience to use its intellect rather than its emotions in considering the themes and action of the play. Brecht believed that focusing on reason, not emotion, would be more effective in conveying the motives of political drama.

Anachronism

An anachronism is an object or idea that is from a time period different from the one in which a work of literature is set; it is something that is clearly out of context with the rest of the work’s environment. The modern workers building Lear’s wall are an anachronism, as is the futuristic “scientific device” used to blind Lear. Anachronisms can have two major effects. They are sometimes used to make a story more universal — to illustrate that the story is not only about the time in which it is set but that it uses themes and ideas that apply to all times. Anachronisms can also contribute to the alienation effect, creating a sense of the surreal that reinforces the unreality of the proceedings. In Lear, Bond’s anachronistic technique serves both purposes.

Allusion

An allusion refers to something outside of the play, usually a literary work. By using allusion, the playwright is able to enrich the audience’s experience of the drama. Though a complete story in itself, Bond’s entire play is an allusion to William Shakespeare’s King Lear. Because the play is about Shakespeare’s text, familiarity with King Lear will deepen the audience’s understanding of Bond’s interpretation. Bodice’s knitting in times of mayhem is an allusion to Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities, a novel about the French Revolution in which the character Madame Defarge, one of the revolutionaries, knits a list of aristocrats who must die into a scarf.

Setting

Bond’s play takes place in a year numbered 3100, presumably in ancient Britain, although Bond fills his story with modern devices, indicating that the action may be taking place in some distant future. Read in this manner, Bond could be condemning the phenomenon of history repeating itself. If the play is set in the future, then the events are a recreation of the original Lear legend that took place centuries before.

The action of the play takes place in a multitude of locations, but there are some that reappear within the play. Although the audience does not actually see Lear’s wall until the final scene, the play opens near the wall, which becomes a pervasive symbolic presence throughout the play. Frequent references to the wall cause the audience to sense a feeling of enclosure and claustrophobia that is representative of the oppression caused by the different regimes throughout the play. Paradoxically, in the final scene the audience is shown the wall, and thus the possibility of a future on the outside; the inspiration for freedom is deepened by Lear’s insistence that the structure, and all that it symbolizes, be destroyed.

The Gravedigger’s Boy’s house is also an important location. It is in this more pastoral setting that Lear experiences the possibility of change and the depth of human kindness. It is to this house that the blind Lear returns and establishes a sanctuary for fugitives from the regime. The house represents the chance of happiness and freedom, an idyll from oppression. Another important location is the prison, where Lear learns of his own responsibility for the suffering of others. Imprisoned with his daughters, he becomes aware that their evil is a reflection — and creation — of his own capacity for such behavior.

Metaphor

A metaphor is a word or phrase whose literal meaning is subverted to represent something else. The wall, the play’s greatest metaphor, is a presence which pervades the play even when it is not seen. It is representative of the oppression and control of various corrupt regimes. Bodice and Fontanelle as well as Cordelia initially see the wall as something that must be dug up. Yet whoever ascends to power realizes that the wall is a means to preserve their authority. At the same time, the people see the wall as the source of their misery. Because of the massive effort put into constructing the wall, their farms are lost and the men sicken and die. The structure is also a metaphor for the “wall” that Lear has figuratively built between himself and his adult daughters, as well as between himself and the emotional needs of his subjects. Lear’s final attempt to dig up the wall represents his realization that such oppressive structures must be demolished to advance humanity.

The blinding of Lear is also metaphoric. In literature blindness is often associated with greater insight. Tiresias, the mythological Greek prophet, is blind as is the character of Oedipus. Lear is blinded just as he begins to realize his own responsibility for the pain of others. In these cases, physical blindness enables greater insight into the human condition. It is also symbolic of an epiphany or great self-reflection. As with the legend of Oedipus (who unwittingly killed his father, married his mother, and, upon learning what he had done, blinded himself), Lear’s blinding occurs at the moment that he gains full realization of his life’s atrocities.