ACT TWO
Gloucestor-Edmund-Edgar triangle
Edmund tricks Edgar into thinking he has to leave because he has annoyed people and will be killed so he runs away and turns himself into nothing by removing his clothes while the others are all after him. Edmund talks to Edgar and stabs himself in the arm so he can go back and say to Gloucestor that Edgar stabbed him – Gloucestor is being played.
This plotline is frustrating due to the dramatic irony used, as the audience knows exactly what’s going on and knows that if Gloucestor wasn’t as quick to react or Edgar didn’t believe Edmund then they would both be able to see that they were being played by Edmund who no longer wanted to be the bastard child.
‘That’s something yet! Edgar I nothing am.’ Act 2, Scene 3, Edgar. In becoming nothing he relates back to the nothing comes of nothing quote in act 1 when Cordelia refuses to speak her love.
‘Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond The child was bound to the father-‘ Edmund trying to tell the father how he should be loved and Edgar was horrible for not doing that.
‘My father hath set guard to take my brother; And I have one thing, of a queasy question, Which I must act.’ Father against the children like how Lear was against Cordelia.
Edgar to poor Tom
‘Edgar I nothing am.’ In the value of a name (you can use the quote from Romeo and Juliet about names), he loses all of his authority. While he is still the same being, he has lost large parts of his character.
Edgar states that he will ‘take the basest and most poorest shape that ever penury, in contempt of man, brought near to beast.’ He is stating that he is allowing himself to lower his status to that of a beggar. By referencing himself to being near to beast he is showing his lowering on the Elizabethan great chain of being, and how he is no longer worthy enough to be called human which come after angels. Instead he remains like a beast which scavenges for food and is exposed to the elements.
In scene two of this act, Cornwall introduces the idea that ‘a tailor makes a man’, meaning that the clothes one wears (which usually show a good indication of status) are what gives an individual their identity. This is continued by Edgar’s becoming ‘nothing’ by the change of his clothes to rags. However, while this may affect the way he is portrayed by others, the clothes worn do not change the essence of the being inside.
Kent
Kent’s statement that ‘anger hath privilege’ is telling Cornwall that he has to have sympathy or make allowances for a man who acts or is extremely angry (as he is), and this is ironic because it parallels with King Lear and how Kent is still trying to go back and fix the decisions that he made when he was extremely angry. This tells us that although Lear’s rash decision making was his downfall, we should still make allowances for his anger.
From Kent’s soliloquy when he was in the stocks at the end he states ‘Fortune, good night; smile once more, turn thy wheel.’ The idea of turning a wheel shows a turning of fate as those at the top of the wheel are then turned to be crushed underneath it while the bottom must then turn to the top. This is Kent seeing the changes of fortunes already occurring and foreshadowing the way in which this will continue (the wheel would usually only turn one way so someone like Lear on the way down must continue going down).
Lear and the storm
At this point in the story Lear is being locked out in the storm by both of his daughters and it seems that the repercussions for his actions are worse than the actions he originally did. Lear gave everything he had to his two daughters and is repaid by being thrown out in the storm, which naturally leads the reader to feel sorry for the tragic hero, meaning we are emotionally invested in the events as we believe he doesn’t deserve what is happening to him. The natural feeling of empathy should be occurring at this point as we begin to care for Lear.
The only direct indication we have of a brewing storm is ‘sounds of an approaching storm.’ In this scene Lear’s speech also starts going from prose to verse which indicates a change in his status and his mental health as a storm is also brewing in his mind.
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