Deferred Recognition and the possibility of Catharsis through Mimesis in Shakespeares King Lear

ENGL 2214 Brayden Beham Submitted to Dr. J. Baxter 23/03/2012

At the end of King Lear the audience is left with a tragic hero who (although coming close) doesnt really take part in catharsis or recognition with other characters in the action, but, as the play is a mimetic reconstruction of a very real psychological state of mind, it is left to the audience to recognize the truth behind this and to be purified in the sense of catharsis by this representation of suffering. Lears fundamental misconception is his thought that he can divest himself of his sovereignty and still remain authoritative. What he subsequently finds is he doesnt have so much as an identity without his families and societies recognition of his status. Without his social status he is nothing and since he has never really known himself anyone when he loses this he goes mad but can never fully recognize it. King Lear as a character is an unflinching mimesis of a crumbling psychological state common to elderly men from all times, more generally the play deals with the precariousness of sanity and the ever present threat and paradox of madness in the human condition. Lear cant make this recognition for it can only be that he has been reborn into madness. Where is the catharsis the recognition? A possible way for the audience seeing the play as cathartic is to apply the lessons of Edmunds mini-practice (or play) on Gloucester at the Cliffs of Dover (IV.VI). Edmund describes the mimetic implications of what he has done as if it were a play saying, in essence, that since his inducement of his fathers suffering is done to cure it, although that inducement is done through a false reconstruction of reality it is no less true. This is because it appeals to something true and enduring in the human mind through the spectacle of suffering taken as real which is meant to purify the audience.

Whereas Gloucester makes this recognition within the action and with another character Lear does not, and so it is left to the audience to recognize the truth behind Lears suffering. In this way the catharsis takes the form of the audiences sympathizing with Lear through their recognition of the aspect of his character mimetically expressing a fundamental truth of human nature, even if that truth is madness and the human struggle to keep it at bay. Lears underlying madness manifests itself in his wrong-headed idea that he can divest himself of his kingship and responsibility and still have authority to do whatever he wants. In effect he is throwing away the identity which society has constructed for him and which defines him. In this he is really attempting to turn the tables on nature by reverting to a state of idleness and dependency, a second infancy taken to the extreme. This comes about through a psychological flaw in the King which is due to his deteriorating mental state. He is not an evil character, neither is he a purely good character. He is psychologically flawed and mistaken and so fits the criteria for a true tragic protagonist. That is since...the structure of the finest tragedymust be a representation of terrible and pitiful events (for that is the peculiar thing about this kind of mimesis)there is the sort of man who is not of outstanding virtue and judgment and who comes upon disaster not through wickedness or depravity but because of some mistake (Whalley, 95). Lear is just such a man and it is just this character flaw which provides the basis for his hamartia. Thus when he disowns Cordelia in the first scene he misses the mark by misdirecting his sense of authority and supremacy at her when really he has none. Lear then articulates a hamartian

resoluteness in saying, The bow is bent and draw, make from the shaft (I.I.149). The misdirected course of this arrow becomes the main action which the play represents. This hamartia will prove to be the basis for the pathos-as-praxis that defines the course of action and theme of the play. As for pathos-as-praxis In Whalleys terms,
Pathosprimarily means suffered, something that happens to a person the complement to something donepathos-as-praxis seems to imply that the crucial event is to be seen both as suffered and as inflictedthe pathos as an event is both pregnant and determinate, the beginning of a process. Peripeteia and recognition heighten and concentrate emotional force: pathos is the key event/act that provides substantial foundation and focus for the peripeteia and recognition. I have therefore rendered praxis here as a transaction to indicate the pathos-action paradox (90).

This play displays suffering as a transaction in the way that Lear attempts to inflict suffering upon Cordelia under the presumption of his authority in the beginning, and throughout the rest is made to suffer from the loss of his authority and the partial (yet ultimately failed and problematic) recognition of Cordelias love for him. This is partial because from a closer look at the opening scenes and the unity of the play we see that Lears fundamental mistake is not that he cannot see that Cordelia truly loves him, it is his flawed mental state and his divestment of authority which has wider implications than the suffering of one daughter. Goneril and Regan are not malicious characters they are really only acting according to the necessity that the situation presents. Their father has revealed

himself to be highly irrational, showing signs of madness in banishing Cordelia. Thus Goneril exclaims, he always loved our sister most; and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off appears too grossly and Regan replies Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath but ever slenderly known himself (I.I.290). Regan and Goneril as rational, even sympathetic, outside observers see that Lears folly is a result of his psychological state and out of a very sensible sense of fear of him and pity for their sister they feel the need to protect themselves. As Regan and Goneril recognize but Lear fails to realize, he has divested himself of authority, seeing this, Regan and Goneril know they can act upon him. It is Lears failure to recognize his initial mistake and his lack of authority that compounds his suffering throughout the play, not the malicious intents of Regan and Goneril. Lears pathos-as-praxis is not just a mistake which inflicts suffering upon Cordelia which is later inflicted back upon him but rather is a mistake that affects all of his daughters and is thus reciprocated back upon him by all of them. Its true The emotional power of the tragic recognitionlies in the protagonists discovery that he is fatally involved, or in danger of being fatally involved, with a blood-relation [and that] The tragic recognition is an abrupt act of self-knowing (Whalley, 86). And indeed Lear does eventually realize that he is fatally involved with Cordelia. But it is not simply Cordelias true love for him which he must recognize, but the madness within him that his other daughters perceive but which he represses. In this way he never attains true self-knowledge. He must but cant admit that he is nothing without his daughters, that all of their fates are entangled together. His failure to recognize that his madness has affected all of

his daughters is part of his failed recognition. Regan and Goneril realize Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest, And must needs taste his folly (II.IV.284). This is in keeping with the idea of pathos-as-praxis because they do it out of a sense of the wrongful suffering of their sister and the need for this suffering to reciprocate back to the king. In this way they are merely the philial agents of pathos-as-praxis acting upon a recognition of Lears fundamental flaw. What this amounts to is Regan and Gonerils implicit recognition that Lear must experience catharsis. However here and throughout the play he implicitly swears it off in a manner of insane pride betraying a violent psychological repression saying, this heart shall break into a thousand flaws/ or ere Ill weep. O fool, I shall go mad (II.IV.278-279). This runs counter to his prediction that Thou shalt find/ that Ill resume the shape which thou dost think/ I have cast off for ever: thou shalt, I warrant thee (I.IV.263-265). If we look at the outcome of the play we see that Lear is left in a fragmentary and shattered mental state and that he could not become whole again because of the fundamental mistake of divesting his authority. Lear in the end fulfills his promise that he will break into a thousand pieces and go mad before he weeps by keeping off the true catharsis which would come about through a recognition of the suffering he has inflicted upon all of his daughters. He cant make this recognition because he never again does regain his authority, sanity, or sense of wholeness.

Lear cannot regain a sense of wholeness because he has given away his authority. Without this, as the fool so ironically articulates, he is reduced to nothing, less than a fool he is reduced to the state of a pleading mad man.

Detecting a note of insolence Lear asks the fool, Dost thou call me fool, boy? and the fool replies, All thy other titles thou has given away; that thou wast born with (I.IV.133-135). This shows so clearly the fools recognition that the titles which society confers on a person are those which define his existence and give him a fixed identity. Indeed the fool is right to say to Lear, Thou has pared thy wit o both sides and left nothing I the middle (I.IV.178-179), because as Goneril has pointed out he doesnt really know himself on the inside and thus when he throws out his titles he is in a state of tragic confusion. He refuses to admit that without society he has no authority, that he is in fact nothing. He is an old man and the clich phrase that you cant teach an old dog new tricks could never be applied better. He refuses to believe that anything can come out of nothing and thus his plan to become whole again is doomed to failure because he is too old and mentally feeble to make something out of himself which isnt tied up with the notions of sovereignty which he should have cast off along with his title. He says it over and over in the beginning, first to Cordelia Nothing will come of nothing (I.I.90), then to the Clowns potentially redemptive question, Can you make not use of nothing, nuncle? to which he echoes back, nothing can be made out of nothing (I.IV.128-130). Lear comes close to a recognition of the nothingness of ones identity when it is not defined by society when he sees Edgar as Poor Tom. The irony here is that Edgar is playing a part and so when Lear exclaims Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art (III.V.105), his he is being duped into feeling sympathy for

unaccommodated man by an act. However there is truth to this. Since Lear is projecting his repressed anxieties about the fact of his own nothingness and the nothingness common to human existence by reacting to the spectacle in such a manner (which was by no means intended by Edgar) his pity seems to suggest a movement towards recognition and catharsis. But even though it seems that this may be a kind of recognition of general suffering Lear fails to recognize the madness and nothingness within him and rather projects it on those around him. At this point he still has a stubborn and prideful sense of having been wronged by his daughters, projecting this as the source of Edgars dejection over and over. He asks, Hast thou given all to thy daughters? And art/come to this? and What, have his daughters brought him to this passDeath, traitor! Nothing could have subdued nature to such a lowness but his unkind daughters (III.IV.47-65). However misguided his view towards his daughters may be, his desire to sympathize with the sufferers is a solution which takes the form of just the kind of suffering that Regan and Goneril prescribe for him. In between projecting his anger on his daughter he suggests to himself, O, I have taen/Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;/expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,/That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,/And show the heavens more just (III.IV.3336). His expression that he has neglected the suffering of the multitudes of the wretched is a projection of his neglect of self-reflection and his own neglected capacity for sympathy. This equation leaves the possibility for catharsis and recognition wide open. That through his suffering he may come to a realization of the wrong he did to not only Corelia but to Regan and Goneril is suggested by his

own conviction that he ought to suffer. However his lack of self-reflection and his madness get the better of him and although he suffers greatly, this kind of catharsis and recognition is never achieved. Rather a different kind of catharsis and recognition is suggested through the figure of Edgar who as we have seen appeals deeply to Lears potential for recognition and catharsis. Edgars ability to evoke recognition and catharsis comes about from his capacity to do what Lear believes impossible: to make something out of nothing. When society ceases to recognize Edgar he recognizes right away that he is nothing without society defining his identity. To this effect he says, Thats something yet: Edgar I nothing am (II.III.23 [emphasis mine]). In this way Edgars answer to the fools (actually crucial) question would be yes, I can make something of nothing. Edgar takes advantage of this, perhaps, unlike Lear, because he is young and cunning, but mostly because he is able to attain the level of detached self-reflection as opposed to the build up and abrupt shedding of years of privilege and repression which keeps Lear from his recognition and catharsis. Thus Edgar is able to go on a journey through the fluidity of identity. However he does it in way which both intentionally and unintentionally reinforces the sense of a moral order in a chaotic world. This is the essence of the idea of creating something out of nothing and he does this through mimesis. In his verbal representation of reality to his father at the Cliffs of Dover he manipulates his fathers emotions in order to reinforce his belief in justice and moral structure. But since the means of this reinforcement is fabrication, what does this say about morality? does this make it somehow less true, a lie? Edgar address this in these

terms, Why I do trifle thus with his despair/Is done to cure itAnd yet I know not how conceit may rob/ the treasury of life, when life itself/Yields to the theft (IV.VI.35-46). This expresses Edgars firm belief that since lies about life reinforce ones affirmation of life then they must carry a grain of truth because they reflect on something true and enduring in human nature and the mind. Even if such fabrications dont express anything morally true about external nature (with its vicious cycles, indifference etc.) it expresses something very true, even inherent, in interior human nature. To me this Edgars defense of his acts reads like a defense of plays themselves as mimetic constructions of reality, specifically in this case psychological and moral reality. Edgars conviction that his trifling with his fathers despair is done to cure it suggest the restorative power of catharsis within a mimesis. This is in tune with Whalleys thoughts on character, For tragedy is a mimesis not of men [simply] but of actions that is, of life. Thats how it is that they certainly do not act in order to present their characters: they embrace their characters for the sake of actions. And so the [course of events] is the end of tragedy, and the end is what matters most of all. (Whalley, 73). Edgar here plays the simultaneous role of playwright and character, mimetically reconstructing reality to bring about a catharsis in his father through leading him to a recognition of moral order and a reversal of his fortune. Thus he presents his character for the sake of action, the action affirmed here is that of action and persistence in everyday life which Gloucester has nearly given up on due to his sense of hopelessness and devastation. This is fundamentally the action of

creating something out of nothing which is so essential to understanding the play. I like to think of this as a kind of art therapy. Trifling with despair in order to cure it is an apt description of just the kind of manipulation of the emotions that theatre itself strives for. Especially the theatre of Shakespeares day which sought in a big way to reinforce the idea of a moral order. The same idea is at work here that is behind the mouse trap in Hamlet. The plays the thing wherein hell catch the conscience of the king because he is expecting to get an emotional reaction out of Claudius which will reinvigorate his sense of a moral order which threatens justice upon him. It is the same idea behind Paulinas extended and hidden practice of deception upon King Leontes when in A Winters Tale she conceals the fact of the Queens being alive in order to have the King suffer and to believe in the just retribution doled out by the gods. All of these are examples of characters practicing deceit on others in order to get an emotional response (catharsis) which will reinforce a sense of moral order and justice. They are all examples of therapy through art, the purgation of suffering through its representation. The success of this deceit on Gloucester proves its restorative power. Yet true recognition and thus catharsis are ultimately deferred by Lear himself. He still refuses to cry and to come to truly cathartic selfknowledge. Edgar is able to take advantage of his nothingness and to get in touch with madness for positive ends because he is younger and more cunning than Lear. He confirms Aristotles view that madness is an asset to the poet/playwright. Lear lacks the creativity and vitality of mind that Edgars youth offers him. Yet somehow Lears suffering is all the more tragic in the way that

Edgars practice suggests and reinforces the idea of the restorative power of tragedy through catharsis, and yet Lear (though many opportunities present themselves) ultimately defers such chances and succumbs to madness. Lears recognition never goes deep enough. This is because his flaw is a deeply seated psychological one stemming from the irreducible paradox of madness and he can never really attain the self-knowing that true recognition requires. If his recognition is that Cordelia is the only daughter that loved him truly, then surely his recognition of that love and his would-be cathartic speech about the joys of father/daughter prison life is maniacally extreme. Either falling short or going too far Lear fails to make the fundamental recognition and that is too devastating for him to make in his already deteriorating mental state. Indeed Lear suggests a kind of reversal to Cordelia when they are briefly reunited but his speech really only conveys his own deep seated madness and lack of recognition of his true situation, which amounts to a heightening of pathos in his representation of suffering. This of course is the birds I the cage speech. But before we look at it more closely lets look at what Cordelia says before this and explain it in Aristotles terms.

She says We are not the first/ Who, with best meaning, have incurrd the worst. (V.III.4-8). This echoes Albanys warning to Goneril in Act I where he says, Striving to better, oft we mar whats well. (I.IV.353). It also shows that neither Lear, Cordelia, Goneril or Regan are totally to blame. Rather it suggests that in each of them pursuing their own subjective best intents the consequences

of their actions have been entangled to the point of disaster. The only thing that would help now would be for the King to see the error of his ways. Yes, hes seen that he was wrong to cast out Cordelia, but what about Goneril and Regan? In recognizing the wrong hes done to Cordelia he sees that he is fatally involved with a blood-relation but he neglects to see how he has wronged his other blood relations: Goneril and Regan. Thus when Cordelia asks shall we not see these daughters and these /Sisters?, Lear maniacally replies No, no, no, no! Come lets away to prison:/We two alone (V.III.8-11). The king is so mad at this point he is ready to go to prison willingly and to perceive it as a happy end for him. He is so mad that he cannot have a full recognition of the extent of his mistake and thus he defers catharsis. To this effect he says The good-years shall devour them, flesh and fell/Ere they make us weep (V.III.24-25). His conviction that the two of them shall not weep keeps the action from being presented by people acting rather than by narration; <bringing about through [a process of] pity and fear [in the events enacted] the purification of those destructive or painful acts> (Whalley, 69). Since the catharsis is not reciprocal between the two characters it is not true catharsis. As Whalley suggest, If catharsis is the purifying process that flows out of tragic terror and pity, then it is a matter not only for the audience but also for the persons engaged in the action (Whalley, 100). For Whalley the catharsis comes about within the action of the play and thus between characters in the play, since this does not happen between Cordelia and Lear the audiences need for catharsis is frustratingly and compellingly deferred.

This is because Lears flaw is a psychological one and stems from madness which is not easily cured. All of the suffering that has come about was a result of his thinking that he could retain authority after casting off sovereignty. His flaw reveals the truth that in society we are nothing without our titles. However his attitude which leads to his deferral of recognition shows just how hard it is for a person to admit that he is going mad. In this way the play deals with the precarious nature of sanity and the ever present threat of insanity which is common to all men. In watching Lear suffer the audience is meant to share in the mimetic representation of a fragmented mind and to sympathize with a man in the process of succumbing to madness. The audience is meant to take the representation as real and so apply it to their lives. If we take a lesson from Edgar we can see the curative, cathartic power, in the representation of despair. However since Lear cannot make the recognition and the catharsis himself it is up to the audience make the recognition that this play is about a psychological flaw which could arise in anyone. Since it is a representation of a psychological trait common to all it is a mimesis of life, although in this case, the life of the mind. Aristotleassu,es that an audience or reader will sympathize with that is enter vicariously intothe human action presented in the play (Whalley, 94). And this is exactly what the audience must do if a recognition is to take place at all and a cathartic effect of is to come about.

Bibliography:

Aristotle, George Whalley, John Baxter, and Patrick Atherton. Aristotle's Poetics. Montreal: McGill-Queen's UP, 1997. Shakespeare, William, and R. A. Foakes. King Lear. London: Thomas Nelson and Sons, 1997.