This is the second time I’ve read this play by Shakespeare. I did not particularly like it the first time but I think that was more due to the fact that I was high school. This second time through I can appreciate it more and I did just that. Shakespeare never was one of my favorites growing up and even now there are still plays of his that I just can’t read; A Midsummer’s Night Dream and Hamlet to name two. But before I get condemned for a heretic, I better move on.
Now before I go any further, I must put a disclaimer here: The next thing that I say is purely an observation. It does not mean that I believe what I said, merely that I’m putting it to words. This whole play was one based on the deceitfulness and evil of women. Again I say that personally don’t I believe that myself but for someone who lived back in the time of Shakespeare and would have sat through this play, it would have been common thinking among the men of the world.
Kahn’s argument for the femininity of King Lear is a strong one. She makes good points that she backs up with examples from the play itself. One thing that has helped me to understand what Kahn is talking about is that I took a critical theory class and in that class one of the theories that we talked about was feminist theory and how it applied to men. I know that it isn’t in the same context, but that class helped me to better understand what Kahn was talking about.
One thing from the play that I thought worked really well for her comparisons and she mentioned it in the passages we read was Lear’s newfound ability to shed tears. This amount of detail that was devoted to this topic was more than enough to allow someone such as Kahn to formulate a theory of some kind. The fact that the play is based in the seventeenth century, where the masculinity ruled, has major role in Kahn’s theory. I think that because of the location of the play, both place and time, Kahn’s theory works well but if we were to apply it to another time or place it might not work as well.
So now if you go back to what I said earlier about the evil and corruptness of women, it would seem to that me that by allowing a little of his feminine side to take over, Lear in his self is becoming corrupt. But the one thing that redeems him in the story is his daughter Cordelia. Unlike her sisters, Cordelia is the epitome of womanly virtues and I believe that Lear isn’t becoming like his Goneril or Regan but more like Cordelia.
Overall, this is not one of my favorite of Shakespeare’s plays but it definitely not my least favorite. The transformation that Lear undergoes and the subplots of all of the other characters make for a overall enjoyable if not confusing read.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Monday, June 15, 2009
Bigger Picture
What can I say about the Moviegoer…...well for one thing, it surprised me. I honestly didn’t expect it to end the way it did. I figured that Binx and Kate would get married but for some reason I saw her killing herself in the end, maybe on their wedding night or something like that. And his aunt was another thing that kinda caught me off guard, that dressing down she gave him then the turn around that she “ had become fond of me.” Both were events that I didn’t exactly see coming them nor the fact that Uncle Jules died. That more than anything was something that I didn’t like because Uncle Jules was one of my more favorite characters, I did call Lonnie’s death though, not that I’m proud of it.
Now as to the matter of Binx’s search, it is my belief that he found what he was looking for but it was in front of him the whole time. In fact, I might go so far as to say that he actually had it the whole time but he was so caught up in his whole “search” thing that he couldn’t see that he already had it. The thing that I think Binx has at the end is a sense of belonging with Kate and his mother’s side of the family. Mainly just a sense of having people depend on him. Kate for telling her what to do and his brothers and sisters for helping them cope with the loss of their brother. Plus, the loss of his favorite step-brother would probably influence this in one way or another. It just seems to me that Binx didn’t really know what he was looking for to begin with so by that same token he couldn’t really know when he found whatever it was that he was searching for.
I don’t think that Binx found religion in the same kind of sense that we normally think of it. What I think Binx stumbled upon is a kind of peace that envelops his life. The last paragraph of the first section in the epilogue even says, “...I am a member of my mother’s family after all and so naturally shy away from the subject of religion.” I say stumbled upon because by Binx’s reckoning, he hasn’t found anything, so he won’t admit that he might have actually found anything.
Going back to what I said about Kate depending on him, echoes of that kind of relationship are scattered throughout the novel, it almost every interaction that they share, Kate’s dependence on Binx is revealed more and more. I think that Binx himself comes to relish his role as Kate’s caretaker. To me, it seems like he feels that by helping Kate to work through her problems, he might be able to take care of his own.
Overall, I think that Binx at the end of the novel has accepted that his life is what it is and that as his aunt puts it, “...that the Bolling family had been going to seed and that I was not one of her heroes but and very ordinary fellow…” He seems to have some kind of self fulfilling prophecy with his aunt and her feeling towards him.
Now as to the matter of Binx’s search, it is my belief that he found what he was looking for but it was in front of him the whole time. In fact, I might go so far as to say that he actually had it the whole time but he was so caught up in his whole “search” thing that he couldn’t see that he already had it. The thing that I think Binx has at the end is a sense of belonging with Kate and his mother’s side of the family. Mainly just a sense of having people depend on him. Kate for telling her what to do and his brothers and sisters for helping them cope with the loss of their brother. Plus, the loss of his favorite step-brother would probably influence this in one way or another. It just seems to me that Binx didn’t really know what he was looking for to begin with so by that same token he couldn’t really know when he found whatever it was that he was searching for.
I don’t think that Binx found religion in the same kind of sense that we normally think of it. What I think Binx stumbled upon is a kind of peace that envelops his life. The last paragraph of the first section in the epilogue even says, “...I am a member of my mother’s family after all and so naturally shy away from the subject of religion.” I say stumbled upon because by Binx’s reckoning, he hasn’t found anything, so he won’t admit that he might have actually found anything.
Going back to what I said about Kate depending on him, echoes of that kind of relationship are scattered throughout the novel, it almost every interaction that they share, Kate’s dependence on Binx is revealed more and more. I think that Binx himself comes to relish his role as Kate’s caretaker. To me, it seems like he feels that by helping Kate to work through her problems, he might be able to take care of his own.
Overall, I think that Binx at the end of the novel has accepted that his life is what it is and that as his aunt puts it, “...that the Bolling family had been going to seed and that I was not one of her heroes but and very ordinary fellow…” He seems to have some kind of self fulfilling prophecy with his aunt and her feeling towards him.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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