Getting Learical: Gods, Elements and Amusing (or Heartrending) Self-Con

When Lear is metaphoric aloney stripped of his musical compositionhood in exploit Two, Scene Four of the play that bears his name, the audience is left to ponder oer the quantifiable loss of power which accompanies the man who has been duped out of his kingdom by his daughters. Surely Shakespe ars use of a specific number of men serves to provide a concrete example of the sad old mans dwindling power. The scene is almost always staged to represent a pathetic Lear, betrayed by his daughters, bereft of a kingdom and ripped from his one-hundred soldiers his ratiocination possession and sole-signifier of his time as king. However, in a legitimate mental testing of the text, one can find evidence for a sympathetic see of the daughters who rip the kingdom from their father and steal away his train. Goneril and Regan stand in the unenviable position of removing freedoms from their father. These freedoms, specifically the rowdy entourage of soldiers, represent a very real danger to G oneril and Regan. Faced with the possibility of death at the hands of an army commanded by a madman, Goneril and Regan, who so often are maligned, both in performance and in interpretation of the text, act logically and avoid a disastrous situation. Lear, who must audiences align themselves with, in contrast, speaks in contradictories, superlatives and curses, further reinforcing the argument Goneril and Regan put forth for taking away Lears army. Before introducing my argument in the text, I wish to acknowledge the vary validities of other stagings or readings of the text. That is, I believe there is significant textual evidence for staging Goneril and Regan in a villainous role. I evidently wish to argue that the text supports additional readings. The Goneril and Regan as villains ... ... Lears take back from grace. Yet, one must always remember that Lear, and not his daughters, initiated the ceremony of succession. Goneril and Regan exercised no coup. Lears loss of manpower i s all the more pathetic because Lear is the beginning of it. Lear set up the fallacious test. Goneril and Regan simply manipulated the test for their own gain. In spite of their dubious motives, the sisters approached the entourage question in an entirely reasonable manner. It was in detail, in good time (2.4.249) that Lear gave all to his daughters. The play ends tragically. That point cannot be disputed, but one cannot escape the fact that Lear, with extreme hubris, commanded the heavens and the elements to blind his daughters. What kind of tragedy might engender transpired had Lear commanded an entire army, capable of hearing and attending to every word, upon his daughters instead?