King Lear at the same time, gives away his power and property to his deceiving daugthers. Lear really thinks that he is giving only his kingship but he doesn´t otice that by not being a king, he is powerless. In case Lear only wants his powerbut ot the responsabilities that come with it. He is very naive, he doesn´t know that power is attatched to a position, he plays the roll of an ignorant powerfull person. Lear, aswell as Edmund are the characters that start the plot.
Edmund, he bastard son of Gloucester, does anything in his will to achieve an imposible position. I his way to power he decieves his father, and his brother Edgar. He demonstrates that he can change his God fixed future. He uses the same way to power as Regan and Goneril, but from lower in the ladder. He is the most cunning and machiavelian character in the play.
Edgar is the only oe in the play who receives power in a natural way, without searching for it. At first he is shown gullible, when he is fooled by Edmund. As the play goes on he shows morality, intelligence and respect and love to his father. This is why when the play comes to order at the end, he receives the most important position, he becomes King of England.
To show how important power is in this play, Shakespeare writes for the wisest character in the lay to say, a long speech in rhyming couplets. I´m going to quote it for a better analisis.
“Have more than thou showest,
Speek less than thou knowest,
Lend less than thou owest,
Ride more than thou goest,
Learn more than thou trowest,
Set less than thou throwest;
Leave thy drink and thy whore,
And keep in-a-door,
And thou shalts have more
Than two tens to a score.”
In this speech I can notice two parts, after and before the point and comma. The first part is made to make Lear learn how to handle and take care of power and property; which are shown to be important. He explains that power and property of importance are determied by: what you have, this means your property, territory. It includes daughters which were thought as a possesion. What you know, which means your culture, wisdom, it includes as an indirect to Lear, what is happening around you.
He says, lend less than thou owest. This is also an indirect to Lear, the fool is saying, do not give to your daughters everything you own. Imediately, the Fool says again to Lear that he does not have enough wisdom, and that wisdom gives power. The last two lines mean that this is the formula for succes.
Thinking as the Fool I shall proceed to study the power determied by wisdom.
As we looked before there is a great preassure from the Fool to Lear in terms of wisdom. Before leaving his throne, Lear at least had materialistic power, but know his power depends on his own wisdom in which he lacks. There is a quote of the Fool which says exactly this.
“All thy other titles thou hast given away;that thou wast born with.”
The Fool expreses to Lear that his years did not give him any experience. And that he as a poor, old man without wisdom, has nothing in his power or property. He again tells how important the power of wisdom is. I believe that he is the example, he is poor but he has wisdom. In this case his wisdom gives him power to manage the mind of a ‘King’. This is all resumed in a phrase:
“Thou should’st not have been old till thou hadst been wise.”
Another character that uses this power of knowledge for his benefit is Edmund. Edmund who is limitated in his property by his state of bastard son, but has plenty of cunningness and wisdom uses this to deceive, fool and convince several people. This play in some way show also, that intelligence can be determined by the ability of persuading, controlling and deceiving.
A very interesting characters that turns some things around and adquires this kind of power is Edgar. Edgar had property, but when he is tricked by his brother, he shows his lack of wisdom. When he escapes, he adquires some knowledge, the first sign of this is that he disguises to avoid death. His power in terms of knowledge accumulates at the end of the play when he is left as the king. There he realises everything happenig around him. He is king because he first had knowledge, just opposite to Lear.
“False to thy gods, thy brother and thy father,”
Edgar speeks what he knows to Edmund.
In conclusion, I think it may be correct to say that power, property, and not so much, inheritance are very central themes of this play. This is because the importance given to the search for power, the lending of power, the importance of power and the importance of power as knowledge, which can be seen as a very frequent theme in our days.
Written by: Juan Ignacio Sanguinetti
