This essay focuses on Act 111, scene 4 of Shakespeare's King Lear, a tragic and powerful scene in which we witness Lear's mind tragically giving way to the threat of madness, which pursued him incessantly throughout the play. However, the character of Lear portrays only one of the three forms of madness depicted in the scene: he may be the only truly mad character, but there is also poor Tom's feigned madness and the Fool's professional madness. These different forms of madness are all represented in different ways through different styles and forms of language, imagery, movement and verbal styles. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay By the time this scene takes place, Lear has been reduced from being a powerful, respected monarch with hundreds of followers, to being a lonely, rejected man, cast out from his kingdom, from his family, from everyone his goods and riches. He has been locked out at night to wander the land, accompanied by the only subjects who remain loyal to his Fool, and by the Earl of Kent, who is disguised as Caius. The Fool and Kent teamed up in the scene to support the king, both physically and mentally. The fact that Lear finds himself here is a mixture of the results of his own madness and the cruelty he suffers at the hands of his own flesh and flesh. blood. In the first scene of the play, Lear makes a series of mistakes, which ultimately prove fatal to the king. He first mistakenly gets rid of Cordelia, his only faithful daughter, then proceeds to divide his kingdom between the two remaining "pelican daughters" (111.4.72), leaving himself only with faith in his daughter's love for him. However, as the title here suggests, his two daughters betray their doting father's trust by taking away all his power and banding together to put him in the miserable situation he now finds himself in. Even though Lear has been reduced to so little, his voice still remains commanding. It retains the language of the central figure, the hero of the work. He specializes in hyperbole, inciting the stars at every opportunity, including here, when he is cast out by his family and commands the stars to hurl their illnesses upon those who have caused him pain: Now all the plagues that in the pendulous The air hang , fatal, on the sins of men, enlighten your daughters! (111.4.64-5) Conducts the trials, ordering the totally unqualified, but in Lear's eyes demented, 'most learned judge' (111.6.21), poor Tom, to be judge in the fictitious trial of Regan and Gonerill , gives sermons and prays. Lear's prayer in Act 111, scene 4, shows him gaining his last firm foothold before falling into the abyss of madness. As Danby argues, Lear has already learned humility and patience – now he learns charity (Danby 1948, p. 186) and also repentance of his "pump" (111.4.33); Lear is oblivious to the physical damage such a storm causes him, informing Kent that "This storm in my mind / Takes from my senses every other sensation / Save what beats there." (111.4.13-15), and therefore pray rather for those others who are at the mercy of the gods and the storm. When he refers to himself, it is not to pray for his salvation, but to chastise himself for the way he has lived his life, and to command himself to "take medicine, pump" (111.4.33) - to become morally sound by rejecting his old ways. When Lear prays, he walks a fine line between madness and sanity. AC Bradley wonders whether, if the king had been allowed to sleep, as was his intention before the prayer, he would actually have returned to health, as he does in Act 1V, Scene 7 (Bradley, 1948, 287). . As it is, this sleep and thepossible recovery are prevented by the arrival of poor Tom, who angrily bursts onto the scene, complete with curses and outbursts of anger which, together with his ghostly appearance, act as a catalyst which ultimately pushes Lear to the brink of madness. The sights and sounds of the demented Poor Tom have an immediate effect on the king, sending him into madness all the more tragic because of the contrast between himself only moments earlier, when he seems almost lucid, and his now completely demented character. Now he speaks the first words of a truly mad king. His descent into madness is represented by the question, "Have you given everything to your daughters?" And have you come to this?" (111.4.47-48). His question seems almost full of hope: has he now found someone who is in the same situation as him? Is he no longer alone in his suffering? The king cannot conceive that something or an event can cause as much pain and misery as that which poor Tom seems to suffer from, as well as his own flesh and blood, and his own daughters he clings to his idea and repeats it again and again (111.4.60- 61, 64-69), refusing to listen to the futile voice of sanity and reason that manifests itself in the figure of Kent, who remains patient with the king throughout. The reason for Tom's powerful effect on the king is that the king immediately identified with his pitiful situation. Lear was cut off from his family, both because of his folly in giving away his entire kingdom, and because of the betrayal and deception of his two former daughters himself and his daughters as part of a single body, a body that Regan and Gonerill have mutilated: Isn't it as if this mouth tears this hand to bring it food? (111.4.16 -17) While he identified with his daughters, now that he has been cut (or bitten), he is lost, desperately looking for someone to identify with, and meanwhile fleeing from the madness that at that time every turn threatens to bring take him, while crying "Oh, this way lies the madness"; let me avoid it; / No more than this” (111.4.2122). Tom, in the image of complete and utter human misery, provides someone Lear is looking for. Lear, in his madness, gained as well as lost. He loses his dignity, identity, all the power and respect he was so accustomed to enjoying - with Lear existing in a world where the ruler of a country is, in authority, almost equal to God, his imperialism knew no bounds and was never questioned or resisted. Now his perception of reality has been completely reversed. But, as a result of this reversal, he gained knowledge that he had never possessed in sanity, learning truths that he could never have conceived before. His thinking has been reversed: he no longer cares about status or politics, as they are irrelevant to his new reality. Now he sees beyond all the false flattery of his daughters and those around him, all the seemingly loyal servants, who so easily abandoned him, just like the ants who learned that "there is no work in the winter" (11.4. 66). He slowly emerges from the political world in which he was so immersed and begins to see the importance of individual human life over status and, as Danby argues, morality over politics (Danby, 1948, p. 171). where what matters is the "quality" (11.4.91) of the individual personality and the position has lost its meaning. Thus, for Lear, poor Tom provides a picture of man exactly as he should be naked to the world, uncloaked in lies and falsehoods, unprotected against the elements and facing life exactly as it is: "You must not silk to the worm". , the beast without skin, the sheep without wool, the cat without perfume. Ah! Here are three that are sophisticated. You are the thing itself! The man withoutaccommodation is nothing more than a poor naked and forked animal like you. (111.4.100-104) Lear then sees the beggar as a 'learned Theban' (111.4.150), someone who knows the secrets of life and nature better than he does, and so Lear begins to ask him: 'What is the cause of thunder?" (111.4.147). Lear tries to share his new mentor's knowledge of the world, hence the tearing of his clothes in an attempt.to emulate him (111.4.105). Edgar has invented a character to fit that who was, in Shakespeare's time, the stereotypical image of madness and despair. He speaks incessantly of the "evil demon" (111.4.44), the devil who supposedly persecuted the mad; he claims to have received the traditional gifts given by the Devil: knives, halteres, and rat flails (111.4.52-53); claims to see the devil "Flibberdigibbet" when Gloucester enters, an accusation which perhaps reflects Edgar's rejected feelings towards his father at this point in the play. Furthermore, he defends himself from Gloucester's derisive remark about the low caliber of his company (111.4.135) by replying that he is accompanied by none other than "Modo" and "Mahu" (111.4.136-7), great commanders of the devils' legions. He goes to great lengths to present a complex, cohesive and convincing picture of himself and his existence, with his wild images of devil chasing and his long-winded speech describing his past life, when there was little need to get there to much. Lear is immediately caught up in his act, and the other characters are so busy worrying about other events and problems that they have little inclination to pay attention to the rambling stories of this mad wanderer. Poor Tom's physical appearance on stage would certainly convey the appearance of a poor beggar in complete destitution he is almost naked (111.4.62-3), and his physical wounds are indicated by Lear's words, "it is the fashion that i discarded fathers / should they have so little mercy on their flesh?” referring, presumably, both to his nakedness and to the wounds or scratches he sustained as a result of this lack of protective clothing. However, despite this verbal and physical aspect, poor Tom, in his "madness", does not appear as tragic as Lear, for many reasons, the most obvious of which is that the audience knows that it is an act carried out by the transvestite . Edgar. The audience feels pity only for Edgar, not for his manifestation of the "beggar of Bedlam" (11.3.14). Furthermore, a touch of humor in Poor Tom undermines his tragic circumstances, for example, his imitation of a sailor navigating the dark depths of the shanty where his imaginary ship sails. The cry of "Head and half, brim and half!" (111.4.37), is not the cry of a soul in deepest torment by the "evil demon" (111.4.43). In fact, he seems to have an odd amount of energy for such a destitute person. The Fool is another character who represents another form of professional madness. The Fool spends his life singing songs, riddles and nursery rhymes - ostensibly to entertain the king and by comparing the speech styles of the king and his aide Fool, we see how different the two characters' positions are. While the King, so accustomed to total authority, shouts at the stars, commanding them to do his bidding, the Fool whispers little ditties in his ear, speaking only to the person, not to the universe, which he rightly understands, is outside from the world. its control. But the king would have done better to listen to this humble Fool from the beginning, because under the veil of nonsense lies an ocean of common sense. When the king rejects Cordelia, the Fool attempts to bombard Lear with this common sense in the only way his station in life allows through rhymes and riddles: "Here, take my forelock!" Well, this Man has.