King lears insanity

Mon Apr 13, Or even actions, actually. If you know how a character talks, you know how she thinks, and if you know how she thinks, you know how she acts.

The old king speaks out from a large fund of vanishing recollections, and in his present we have the odor and efficacy of a remote and varied past. Certain presages and predispositions of insanity are manifest in his behavior from the first, as the joint result of nature, of custom, and of superannuation.

We see in him something of constitutional rashness of temper, which, moreover, has long been fostered by the indulgences and flatteries incident to his station, and which, through the cripplings of age, is now working loose from the restraints of his manlier judgment.

King lears insanity has been a wise and good man, strong in reason, in just feeling and rectitude of purpose, but is now decidedly past his faculties; which, however, as often happens, is unapparent to him save as he feels it in a growing indisposition to the cares and labors of King lears insanity office.

So that there is something of truth in what Goneril says of him; just enough to make her appear the more hateful in speaking of it as she does: These growing infirmities of nature and time are viewed by his children with very different feelings.

The two elder are inwardly glad of them. They secretly exult in the decays and dilapidations of his manhood as incapacitating him for his office, and so speeding their hopes of the inheritance.

They know it is his disease to be gratified with such hollow and hyperbolical soothings as would else be the height of insolence. And so in the name of duty they study to inflame the waywardness that provokes their scorn. They crave reasons for persecuting him, and therefore will say anything, will do anything, to pamper the faults which at once prompt and seem to justify their contempt of him.

In a word, it is their pleasure to bring oil to his fire, that he may the sooner be burnt out of their way. With Cordelia all this is just reversed. The infirmities of a beloved and venerated father are things which she does not willingly see; when she sees, she pities them; and in a true filial spirit never thinks of them but as a motive to greater tenderness and respect.

That his mind is falling out of tune, inspires her with the deeper reverence: Partly from a conscious purpose, but more from an instinct of dutiful affection, she tries to assuage and postpone his distemper with the temperate speech of simple truth ; duty and love alike forbidding her to stimulate his disease with the strong waters of fleering and strained hyperbole.

Then too a fine moral tact seems to warn her that the medicine of reason must be administered to the dear old man in very gentle doses, else it will but feed his evil. And her treatment is well adapted to keep his faculties in tune, but that her holy purpose is baffled by the fulsome volubility of her sisters.

The first two speeches of the play make clear that the division of the kingdom has already been resolved upon, the terms of the division arranged, and the several portions allotted. Lear has a morbid hungering after the outward tokens of affection; he is not content to know that the heart beats for him, but craves to feel and count over its beatings.

The passion is indeed a selfish one, but it is the selfishness of a right-generous and loving nature. Such a diseased longing for sympathy is not the growth of an unsympathizing heart; and Lear naturally looks for the strongest professions where he feels the deepest attachment.

Thwarted of his hope where he has centred it most and held it surest, his weakness naturally flames out in a transport of rage.

King Lear's Insanity | Essay Example

For the device is a pet with him. And such a bauble of strategy would have had no place in his thoughts had he been of a temper to bear the breaking of it.

Being thus surprised into a tempest of passion, in the disorder of his mind he at once forgets the thousand little daily acts that have insensibly wrought in him to love Cordelia most, and to expect most love from her.

His behavior towards her, indeed, is like that of a peevish, fretful child, who, if prevented from kissing his nurse, falls to striking her.

The sense of having done her wrong sticks fast in his heart, and will not let him rest. And his remorse on this score renders him the more sensitive to the wrongs that are done him by others.

He could better endure the malice of his other daughters, but that it reminds him how deeply he has sinned against her love who has ever approved herself his best. Hence, when Goneril is stinging her ingratitude into him, he exclaims, O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!

For the character seems designed in part to illus trate the power of passion to reawaken and raise the faculties from the tomb in which age has quietly inurned them. And so in Lear we have, as it were, a handful of tumult embosomed in a sea, gradually overspreading and pervading and convulsing the entire mass.

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In his conscious fulness of paternal love, Lear confides unreservedly in the piety of his children. The possibility of filial desertion seems never to have entered his thoughts; for so absolute is his trust, that he can hardly admit the evidence of sight against his cherished expectations.

Bereft, as he thinks, of one, he clings the closer to the rest, assuring himself that they will spare no pains to make up the loss. Cast off and struck on the heart by another, he flies with still greater confidence to the third. Though proofs that she too has fallen off are multiplied upon him, still he cannot give her up, cannot be provoked to curse her; he will not see, will not own to himself the fact of her revolt.A summary of Themes in William Shakespeare's King Lear.

Learn exactly what happened in this chapter, scene, or section of King Lear and what it means. Perfect for acing essays, tests, and quizzes, as well as for writing lesson plans.

Lear is not only a father but also a king, and when he gives away his authority to the unworthy and evil Goneril and Regan, he delivers not only himself and his family but all of Britain into chaos and cruelty.

Jul 14,  · Report for King Lear’s Insanity. Author: Arnab Banerjee Date: 1st May Report prepared for: Dr. Nadarajan (Vice President of the Board) Organization: Hilton Hospitals, Ireland, UK Ref: King Lear’s deteorating mental and physical health Dear Dr.

Nadaraja, I am a clinical psychologist studying the effects of traumatic experiences King Lear is going through. Shakespeare's Characters: Lear (King Lear) From King Lear.

Ed. Henry Norman Hudson.

New York: Ginn and Co., LEAR'S INSANITY. It is significant that experts in mental diseases consult and quote King Lear as though it were the history of an actual case of insanity.

Oct 27,  · Lear’s insanity was actually a benefit to many people in the play, instead of harmful which would be expected. It showed to Lear how to be a humble and caring ruler to his subjects. It also caused Edgar to start coming out of his pretended insanity which .

Discuss the character of the king. Answer: When we first see Lear, he is not a lunatic, although in his lack of judgment, in the excitability of his nerves, and in his unmanly yielding to passion, we discover a decided predisposition to insanity.