We're All Mad Here

Madness is quite a common theme in Shakespeare. Why is it that all nobleman turn to pretending insanity when facing delicate, political matters? It does make some sense, no one listens to a madman, which allows for discretion and anonymity. It's a fine line to walk though as so often those who feign insanity eventually succumb to it and end up screwing themselves over in some way. King Lear seems to think that madmen make the best counselors in pitiful times when you're thrown out of your bratty daughter's house into a storm to suffer. His little broken kingdom is one of fools, beggars, and old men, all cast out and so equal in Lear's eyes. He's become so resigned in Act 3, refusing to leave his hovel and the mad beggar for some real shelter with Gloucester. It's when the King's given up that everyone else starts to realize how horrible his daughters are being and how disgraceful Lear's treatment has been. Everyone learns too late, Gloucester about the king and Edgar, the servants about their masters, the dukes even about their wives. It's like the sight of how pitifully far Lear has fallen seems to finally trigger something in the rest of the characters. Lear was King, and in a way the Father to his people, a wise(ish) ruler, and it's the complete reversal from King to homeless wanderer that shocks everyone into realizing what's going on, although it's too late for them to really change anything.