It is fairly safe to say that human nature is something that Shakespeare was intent on articulating through his works. To be more specific, he was intent on articulating the concept of consequences we face because of our wrongs. For example, his characters King Lear, Macbeth, and Othello-though not inherently villainous-made specific choices that not only led to a downward spiral of their sanity, nature, or status among those they held dear, but to their deaths, as well.
Macbeth, for instance, killed person after person in order to “right” one wrong he had so hastily committed. But, as Theodore Dalrymple stated in his essay , Why Shakespeare is for All Time, “Macbeth is no stage villain… He is a normal man, endowed with nature no worse than ours is…” So it was with Othello; because of his choice to trust Iago and allow jealousy to overtake him, he managed to kill the only person who was actually faithful to him.
Dalrymple’s statement holds true for King Lear, as well. Lear’s bad judgement cost him his mental well being and his reputation. No one could dare say he is the victim in this tragedy, after he so readily mistook his daughters’ vocalization of love for the action of being devoted in order to feed his own pride (or whatever it was that he wished to feed). Lear’s ego and inward focus were ultimately his downfall.
In Act I, Scene I, Lear makes the decision to divide his kingdom between Regan and Goneril based on his desire for their verbal affection, rather than entrusting it to Cordelia-his one daughter that truly deserved it. Soon after, in Act I, Scene III, it becomes clear that he made the wrong choice as Goneril speaks against her father, planning to have him driven out of her house.
Goneril succeeds, and later Regan, as well. Lear is left with only Cordelia (who is good enough to take him in), and the Earl of Kent (who is loyal enough to stand by him, if even in disguise.)
This sequence of events (a poor decision followed by assured demise) is what I refer to as the Edward Hyde Syndrome (referring to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). In the words of Dalrymple, “…there is a boundary that, once crossed, deprives a man of his full humanity.” In the case of Hyde and Lear alike, this boundary was the conscious decision to focus on or pursue selfish and frivolous things until they eventually deteriorated as human beings. King Lear’s downfall mirrors Hyde’s so closely that you can draw striking parallels between Lear’s realization that he had made a grave mistake in banishing Kent and disowning Cordelia in Act V, Scene III, and the final chapter of Stevenson’s book (Hyde’s realization that he had made a grave mistake in trying to separate his two natures.)
As with most of Shakespeare, King Lear is the consequences of selfishness and poor decision making magnified – making a simple point; consequences inevitably follow our wrongdoing, and they are irreversible.
Reference:
- “Why Shakespeare is for All Time” by, Theodore Dalrymple.
