Alex Lama – Noujaim 09/12/2021

Oh reason, not the need!

Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ reaches one of its most powerful moments in scene 2,
act 2, with a famous speech from Lear regarding all the injustice done to him since
the start of the play. Regan and Goneril are to blame for prompting such anger
from their father, by patronizing him and ripping him abruptly from his status and
identity. To add to this, his loyal servant, Kent, was put in the stocks, a
punishment normally suited to lowly peasants rather than the King’s personal
attendant. Lear’s anger culminates in a long speech which bring up many of the
themes central to his character in the play.

Lear begins by attempting to define what the need of a human being is. He claims
that the fundamental necessities of life are the same for animals as for humans:
‘Man’s life is as cheap as a beast’s’. However Lear then says that for men there is
in fact another type of need, a ‘true need’, as he calls it. Having lost his status as a
king, Lear seems not content with just living with the basic needs, he wants to
retain the respect he once had, after having given it away foolishly. Lear’s knights
serve as a symbol for Lear’s true needs, and his daughters relentlessly try to take
that away from him. By being stripped of his power, respect and identity, Lear
feels that he is being reduced to the level of an animal.

Lear’s fragility is exposed throughout the speech. Near the start of his speech he
refers to himself as a ‘poor old man’. He seems to have accepted his age and now
uses it as a tool to try and gain some sympathy. Ironically, it is only due to his old
age that his daughters have been able to exploit him so cunningly and wickedly.
Lear refers twice to crying, and pleads that ‘water drops’ may not ‘stain my man’s
cheeks’. He seems to have an obsession with retaining his masculinity as crying is
a woman’s trait. Shakespeare is pointing out the expectations of the male sex in
‘King Lear’, to a predominantly sexist Jacobean audience to whom machismo
amongst men was common. Lear is seen desperately attempting to keep to these
sexist bounds, in order to not succumb to ‘women’s weapons’. He contrasts these
weapons with his own ‘man’s cheeks’, which are a symbol of his masculinity.
However, as soon as he says ‘I’ll not weep’, a storm breaks out covering his face
in water, undermining Lear’s great attempts not to appear to cry. In fact in some
productions of ‘King Lear’, he does cry to demonstrate that even his manhood is
lost, along with his power and status.

Lear’s vulnerability, is starkly contrasted by his strength of language and

unmoving fury. He blames the Gods, calling to them quite arrogantly as ‘you
gods’, when in reality the audience knows that he has brought his fate upon
Alex Lama – Noujaim 09/12/2021

himself. He describes his planned revenge on his two daughters as being the
‘terrors of the earth’. This global threat is also reinforced by his reference to ‘all
the world’, just before. Coming from a man completely stripped of power, it is
quite striking that he would claim such a large scale attack, reinforcing that he still
remains ignorant about the extent to which he has lost power and status. His
mighty threat is contrasted by the emptiness of his words, as he earlier states that
he does not even know yet, what exactly he’s going to do. Lear’s lack of threat
signifies how futile his angry speech is, and only serves to lose even more dignity
as he realizes how powerless he has become. Another element of power in his
speech is the pathetic fallacy created by Shakespeare, as a storm breaks out near
the end of his speech. The storm reflects his mood exactly, as the thunder
represents his rage, and the rain, his tears. Shakespeare maps the weather to Lear’s
feelings to convey the importance of Lear’s message.

This speech is one of the play’s key passages, and marks a significant shift in
Lear’s character. He finally begins to accept that he has lost everything, and
consequently ends his speech proclaiming that he will ‘go mad!’. The contrast
between the power and force of the language used, and King Lear’s feeble and
weak state of old age, has an impacting effect on the audience. The speech serves
as a mark of Lear’s defeat, and all his empty threats seem to make his daughters
even more powerful, as the reality of his loss of status is brought to light.