Gloucester does the complete opposite. He appears a relatively benign person who is confused by the affairs of the kingdom. He does not try to structure his old age so that everything will work out for the best, but rather seems to be going with the flow of time. Sadly, this inaction does not prevent him from being sucked into Edmund's whirlpool.
The sad truth of comparing their situations is that Shakespeare seems to say there is no right course, either of inaction or decision, for these deteriorating men to take. If they did not know their children by this point, no choices will save them now. They are left to the villainous mercy of offspring and are powerless against it.
This is kind of a depressing commentary from Shakespeare on old age! Do you think that he is suggesting that these men are reaping the results of bad parenting? Or do you think that it's something more along the lines of a commentary on deteriorating family ties as generations progress?
ReplyDeleteI honestly would say that if you do not know your children by this point then you must have done something wrong especially if you can't at least tell who is sincere and who is just full of it. Then again, parents like to believe that their children are good and that they did not fail in raising them. Lear and Gloucester could be in denial about the quality of their parenting thus their blindness to who is good and who is bad.
ReplyDeleteI actually also wondered why they weren't more aware of how awful their children were. It's hard to believe that over night they just became awful. Perhaps they're just really sneaky?
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