The Fool Flashcards
Different views of the Fool
- Cordelia’s representative (he pines away when Cordelia goes to France).
- Truth-teller (he is the only character, who can be completely honest with Lear without punishment)
- Social commenter (he comments on the injustice and corruption of Lear’s reign (3:2 79-96) and perhaps predicts a better time to come. Throughout the play he draws close attention to the chaos Lear has caused in his kingdom.)
- Vehicle for pathos
- Lear’s alter-ego
- comic relief
- voice of conscious
Jesters
A jester, court jester, or fool, was an entertainer during the medieval and Renaissance eras who was a member of the household of a nobleman or a monarch employed to entertain guests.They provided witty analysis of contemporary behaviour and were to remind the sovereign of his humanity.
History of the Fool - AO2 + AO3
- Traced back to ancient times - In the middle ages Jesters, and in the Renaissance, a familiar servant is aristocratic homes.
- Regarded as pets or mascots; there to amuse but also criticise their masters and guests.
- Queen Elizabeth apparently rebuked one of her fools for not being honest enough with her.
Natural vs professional / artificial fool
- Natural fools were seen as almost supernatural. They had a prophetic quality to them. The ‘natural fool’ was often viewed as touched by God (how they might perceive Poor Tom)
- A professional fool was merely a job that allowed them to act.
- Either way position of privilege was established (Lear’s ‘all-licenced’ Fool)
Feste - Twelfth Night
Viola’s soliloquy about Feste:
“This fellow is wise enough to play the Fool, And to do that well craves a kind of wit.”
Terry Eagleton - AO5
“To know your own nothingness is to become something, as the fool is wiser than fools because he knows his own folly and so can see through theirs”
Goldsmith - AO5
The Fool is “Lear’s alter ego, his externalized conscience”
The Fool’s prophecy
Echoed in Edgar’s ‘serving-man’ speech
The fool’s paradoxical prophecy at then end of act 3 scene 2 provides a contrast/juxtaposition between the real world that he and Lear are experiencing and the perfect world where justice and goodness prevail against evil.
During the Fool’s prophecy, the actor seems to step out of character to remind the audience that some things never change: Lear’s dilemma would be the same today (in the seventeenth - or even the twentieth-century), because the ideal world is yet to come.
“This is a brave night to cool a courtesan” - pun on ‘night’/knight’ could imply that knight/rich are more immoral than prostitutes but their money hides it. Calling out how wrong the world is.
“When priests are more in word than
matter” - hypocrisy of the Catholic church. priests talk more about good than they practice it.
“when every case in law is right” - corrupted justice system
The line “This prophecy Merlin shall make - for I live before his time.” Is uncanny. The fool speaks the name of a figure who is not yet born (related to King Arthur). There’s something uncanny almost unworldly about this character - and his sudden disappearance from the play adds to this sense of mystery.
The Fool makes many social criticisms in this prophecy: exploitation of religion and references to the catholic church, corrupted justice, appearance vs reality, buying into position, spies in court and corrupt power. The things he mentions happen all the time suggesting Britain has already fallen into decay and his prediction of the Merlin making the same prophecy in the future suggests Britain will be in chaos for a long time.
George Orwell on social criticism -
“(King Lear), contains a great deal of veiled social criticism. It is all uttered either by the Fool, by Edgar when he is pretending to be mad, or by Lear during his bouts of madness.”
“Since my young lady’s goin to France, Sir, …
the fool hath much pined away - Kent/Cauis (1:4, 70)
AO1: ‘pined away’ - an idiom that means to become thin and weak because of sadness or loss. the fool is a representative of Cordelia. Pathos.
Fool to Kent: “Take my…
coxcomb… If thou follow him thou must needs wear my coxcomb.” (1:4, 96)
AO2: Coxcomb - Symbol of the fool. Foreshadows Lear and Kents foolishness and downfalls.
AO3: The traditional fool’s cap is modeled on a cock’s comb. In folklore, it was said that the rooster was such a fool that he thought that the sun rose because he crowed.
AO4: Highlight Lear’s hamartia and foreshadows his downfall
“Truth’s a dog…
must to kennel; he must be** whipp’d** out when the lady’s Brach may stand by th;fire and stink” - Fool (1:4, 105)
AO2: Metaphor - Shows revealing the truth and what Lear did to Cordelia. He kicked her out for speaking the truth but rewarded those who lied (G and R)
Fool’s role as truth teller.
‘whipp’d’ - cruelty
AO3: The fool was allowed to take considerable liberties in his jesting, but he would be whipped if he went to far. Reflects how truth is punished - Justice is corrupt.
Egg Metaphor
Fool: “give me an egg, and I’ll give thee two crowns.”
Fool: “why after I have cut the egg i’th’middle and eat up the meat, The two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest thy crown i’th’middle, and gav’st away both part, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt”
“Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away”
AO2: The Fool comments on the foolishness of Lear dividing his kingdom by describing it as a split egg with the divided shell as two crowns. In this metaphor, the split eggshell, or two crowns, are inherently weaker than the single “crown” that held the egg before. Suggests that when Lear divided his Kingdom he gave away all the value and stability (the yolk). He is now empty.
metonymy - replacing crown with egg implies that Lear’s kingship is fragile and on the verge of breaking at any moment - foreshadowing his downfall.
AO3: “thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt” - Reference to chain of being/reversal of nature. Reference to one of Aesop’s fables about a man, who for fear of overloading the beast, carried his ass to the market. “By trying to please everybody, he had please nobody, and lost his ass besides” moral: If you please all you please none. - links to dividing his kingdom?
AO4: Lear’s hamartia - dividing his kingdom
“…thou mad’st thy…
daughters thy mothers; For when thou gav’st them the rod and putt’st down thine own breeches” - Fool (1:4, 162)
AO2: Metaphor - humiliation, foreshadows Act 2 scene 3 with Kent in the stocks. Even though there’s alot of talk about mums in the play, Fool to Goneril “mum, mum” (1:4,186), there aren’t actually any mothers present. Also links to how the GCOB is upside down Lear has fallen from the top to the bottom and the social norms for children to respect their parents had been overturned.
AO3: The absence of mothers in the play articulates a patriarchal conception of the family in which children owe their existence to fathers alone; the mothers role of procreation is eclipsed by the father’s, which is use to affirm male prerogative and male power.
Goneril + Regan taking advantage of Lear’s old age - Sir Brian Annesley or William Allen cases
I am better than thou…
art now; I am a fool, thou art nothing.” - Fool (1:4, 183)
AO2: ‘nothing’ recurring motif links to Cordelia + truth-teller role.
AO4: Links to Lear’s hamartia. All that he has left is lies. He’s given away all of the value and truth in his life. Lear’s hamartia = he’s inability to see something in nothing and his lack of self-awarness.
AO5: Terry Eagleton: ‘“To know your own nothingness is to become something, as the fool is wiser than fools because he knows his own folly and so can see through theirs” - in contrast Lear is myopic to his own foolishness and as a result cannot see anybody else’s. You cannot see through someone else’s character if you cannot see through your own - Lear’s lack of self-awareness and his refusal to acknowledge the truth.
Fool’s metaphor for Lear being empty
“That’s a sheal’d peascod” - Fool (1:4, 183)
AO2: Metaphor - Lear is empty
