Bond speaking of “ends and means” is extremely contemporary. Nowadays, this problem still exists. People think that the only answer to an attack is to make war or throw bombs on the enemy even though we make it worse. For example, what president Bush is currently doing demonstrates it very well: his ambition, fighting terrorism, is very good but the means he uses, i.e. war, in other words violence, is the worst we can imagine. In conclusion, ends here don’t justify the means because it doesn’t solve anything but makes it worse: violence only engenders more violence.
It must further be noted that violence is often connected to power. It is a symbol of dictatorship; it has causes and effects just like dictatorship. Bodice’s speech in scene 6 of Act II when she is defeated, reflects exactly this argument: “O you are cruel when you get a little power…” (II.vi.75). In fact, as we have seen before the most important thing is how we achieve our ambition. “Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. This is exactly what occurs in Lear ; he acts with autocratic authority and he is despotic. He will thus cause his own end because he causes rebellion. And this is what allowed him to do what he wants even though it does harm to someone. For example, in the first scene, Lear accuses someone of killing the worker without any proof: “I shall give evidence. He killed a workman on the wall. That alone makes him a traitor. But there’s something else suspicious about him” (I.i.17). Power always justifies everything. Indeed, violence is not necessary, it is only the production of fear and frustration; we cause it by the way we treat people. According to Bond, autocratic regimes are the best medium for violence. He argues that the more power you have the more violent you are likely to be. In fact, in Lear people who attain power become automatically as violent as the predecessor even though they have good ambitions as their roots.
Bond condemns the use that totalitarian regimes make of their power to achieve their ambitions. The question is, can we build justice on injustice? In Lear’s society the antithesis of justice against law and order is apparent. There is no justice where there is too much “law and order”. This favours violence. It is very well described in Lear’s speeches when his madness begins to make him see things clearer: “You commit crimes and call them the law! (III.ii.92)…Your law always does more harm than crime, and your morality is a form of violence” (III.iii.99). This antithesis is central to Bond’s belief, which claims that “law and order” destroys justice.
Moreover, the end of Lear shows that action is the only moral solution to it. Bond’s philosophy is that, to change the world you have to identify the problems and then solve them. Bond wants then to convey this necessary awareness, this idea of freedom so that we act. In The Sea Bond shows this very well by putting the emphasis on the strength of people that do something to change the world. We see it in the last scene with Willy, one of the characters who realized the ugly face of the world and went up for a new life and perhaps can “ still change the world” (viii.169). Moreover, Bond ends his play with an open ending: the reader can interpret it in his own way. This end not only permits reflection on the subject but also shows that just talking is not useful: Willy stops talking when he actually starts acting. So Bond is not ready to sit down and accept. That’s why he criticizes religion because he hates passivity. And what he wants to demonstrate is that religion is often related to political power and violence. In Narrow Road to the Deep North , Georgina is one other sort of dictator, a fanatical Christian who is confused with power and religion. She doesn’t do anything to save the children who stay passively by waiting for death (II.iii). Her madness at the end is the representation of our ability to accept the massacre of the innocent: madness as an antidote to violence. Nowadays, the same is going on in Palestine: the innocent are killed because of religious beliefs and fanatism. In addition, Bond’s Lear shows that you create the pattern that will kill you: Lear did harm to people and this very same people will do harm to him. On other words, by being cruel to the other you are being violent to yourself. Dictatorship is in each one of us. We all react violently to aggression. Indeed, Bond also wants to show that there is no need for great punishment and control because according to him, there is no need of aggressivity in human nature. Thus, we are aggressive only if the world around us is violent. It’s not human instinct. That’s why he rejects the death penalty, because if aggressivity is an instinct, there is no better person able to judge and change the world. Killing is no solution since we should change the world, so that there should be no more aggressivity and thus no more need to punish.
One of the other points linked to violence is education. People are linked to their environment. We have to keep in touch with the world and be aware of its structures, of being subjected to them. In the “Preface” to the book, Bond says that “our society has the structure of a pyramid of aggression and as the child is the weakest member it is at the bottom, …Don’t most people believe they have a right, even a duty, to use crude force against children as part of their education?”(p.6). In Lear, this is described with Lear’s daughters. They betray him without any scruples. And we can see this in Lear's speeches: “ My daughters have taken the bread from my stomach” (I.v.31). This proves that his daughters are the result of Lear’s parental influence. They are the reflection of his past; they reject his behaviour but act in a worse way pretending that they want to stop dictatorship. This demonstrates that if you live in a violent environment you will be influenced by it even if you want to change it. However, it is interesting to point out that in the first scene of the play the daughters, Bodice and Fontanelle, react against their father’s arbitrariness saying that “… if you kill this man it will be an injustice…It’s silly to make so much out of nothing”(I.i.18). This is a very ironical scene because from the following scene onwards they are enemies to Lear and act exactly like their father by using violence to achieve their ambitions in ways sometimes even more cruel than his.
Here it is important to point out the crude scene of Warrington’s death. The mutilation of the politician is a consequence of the developing situation, i.e. that for the girls it is the situation that creates the events: Warrington betrayed them so it justifies their torturing him. Once more ends don’t justify the means. In addition, it is pertinent to look at the daughters’ behaviour. Fontanelle is very interested in what happens and acts like a little girl in her excitement. For her, satisfaction can only be achieved by the destruction of the thing she hates and her language collapses into that of a child with an opportunity for revenge: “ Kill his hands! Kill his feet! Jump on it- all of it! … Kill it! Kill all of it! Kill him inside!” (I.iv.28). On the other hand, Bodice has a frightening control of herself and performs only one single action: putting her knitting needles into Warrington’s ears and then stepping back to admire her work: “Like staring into a silent storm” (I.iv.29). This scene demonstrates very well how far the cruelty can go.
The problem of education and origins is always present in our society. For example, a baby who is ill-treated during his childhood will certainly be violent later on. The same occurs with refugees. Indeed, those who have always lived in a war atmosphere don’t feel at ease in a peaceful system because they have too much violence in themselves. To illustrates this, I want to quote Bond’s words: “society is held together by the aggression it creates, and men are not dangerously aggressive but our sort of society is. It creates aggression in these ways: first, it is basically unjust, and second it makes people live unnatural lives …an unjust society must be violent” (pp.8-9). Here Bond is trying to make us realize the sickness of our society, a sickness that lies beneath the surface without our noticing it.
It must further be noted that Cordelia's revolution demonstrates very well that if you behave violently, you create an atmosphere of violence, which generates more violence. In fact, Cordelia’s reaction is simply based on the feeling of revenge. She has been raped and her husband has been killed in front of her eyes. She feels hatred and for her “to fight …you must hate, [and] can’t trust a man unless he hates”(II.iii.58). This is the reason for her aggression. Then she says that “when we have power these things won’t be necessary”(II.iii.59). Once again, the ambitions are from best motives but the means are always the same: violence.
Moreover, it is interesting to point out that this is a woman who leads the army and has power. In other words, in Bond’s plays the important role is often played by a woman. In The Sea there is Mrs Rafi, in Narrow Road to the Deep North there is Georgina and in Lear there is Bodice, Fontanelle and of course Cordelia. All these women turn into dictators. This is very astonishing because in our society the dictators have always been men. Here Bond wants to demonstrate that these women are conditioned by their social circumstances. Indeed, our society has always been male-dominated and has elaborated an image of women that must be perfect since they are mothers or teachers and stay at home and this is what Bond condemns: oppression always leads to rebellion. And as soon as those women have desires, they are bad. Moreover, they are rebels in Bond’s plays because they have learnt what they have faced, and reproduce the male attitude on the others. So madness is due to their rigid role in society.
In conclusion, throughout Lear Bond proves very well that violence is not a solution to problems. It only increases them, engendering more violence. There is no evidence that violence is an instinct in humans, “aggression is an ability, not a necessary” (p.4). For him, the keys to solve this aggressivity are human strength and tolerance, the “weapons” of humanism. For example, Gandi chased the English out of India without using violence only with spiritual strength, i.e. with just an enormous crowd of people he managed to chase them. In other words, it was his own steadfast refusal of violence that was as powerful as the number of people who demonstrated, plus the self-control of the demonstrators. This humanistic philosophy appears in many speeches of the play, which gives it an important weight. Bond’s philosophy is clear: violence is not an antidote to it. We must act to change the world to have a better future. But this means a fundamental change: we live in a world where the roots of almost any action is violence and it should be motivated by a pacific spirit!
Bibliography
Bond, Edward. Plays:2. London: Eyre Methuen, 1978.
Coult, Tony. The Plays of Edward Bond. London: Eyre Methuen,1977.
Hay, Malcolm and Roberts, Philip.Bond a Study of his Plays. London: Eyre Methuen,1980
Edward Bond, Plays :2 ( London: Eyre Methuen, 1978), p.4. All further references are to this edition.
This idea is also developed by Tony Coult in The plays of Edward Bond (London: Eyre Methuen,1977).
