It is interesting how at the end of the play, pretty much everyone dies. This is normal for a tragedy, except, I almost wonder if that makes it less tragic. We see all this chaos building up and characters discovering who betrayed them, which were usually a family member who they believed to have loved. (We could use this as a comparison to Christ’s betrayal and death). We also see Lear suffering from guilt and madness, Gloucester who suffers from guilt but also the pain from his blinding, and the good characters like Kent, and Albany too, feel awful for all that has come about to the kingdom. Everyone is suffering in some way from all that has happened. Therefore, dying is somewhat of a release from that. Recently I was reading some of Poe’s The Colloquy of Monos and Una which suggests that death is only defined by those who are watching it and viewing it as a sad, depressing thing. Shakespeare definitely creates that eerie definition inside of us as an audience that is why his tragedy was successful. However, maybe it was only a tragedy for the characters who lived. It is sort of relieving to think that the most suffering characters were relieved, and thus the story can be seen as not so tragic, but more fulfilling because we all have the hope of being relieved from the chaos that takes place all around us do to nature and other people.
It's interesting, I think this might with Jordan's argument that madness, too, was escape... apparently, there's lots of escapism in this play!
ReplyDeleteGood point. Doesn't Kent say to just let Lear go because this life is a rack for him? Its almost a good thing. I think it can be more hard to watch a tormented character live than die, like the agony found in Waiting for Godot because they are constantly stuck in a hopeless place without any way out. Ending the play like that would be more harsh. I'm kind of glad Shakespeare's nice enough just to let Lear die.
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