At all times power has possessed property to change people’s lives once and for all. Once a person feels the power, there is no way his/her life can stay the same. Power requires wisdom; otherwise, the one who possesses it risks either losing everything or losing head. The latter is what has happened with King Lear, the protagonist of William Shakespeare’s play. The play traces Lear’s gradual sinking into madness; the passing of this madness takes place at some point but it is already too late for the reason that Lear is unable to resume his throne. This all is accompanied by plots and numerous deaths, including the death of Lear’s beloved youngest daughter Cordelia, which leads to the king’s going into grief, collapsing and eventually dying. The tragedy is set into motion by Lear’s wishing to find out which of his daughters loves him most wrongly believing that their words indeed reflect the depth of their love for him. Being unable to properly interpret his younger daughter’s words, he exhibits the level of his own wisdom and, leaving the daughter without heritage, dooms himself to a miserable existence. Lear’s voluntary depriving himself of power results in his falling off of everybody’s respect and the respect of his daughters in the first place. His getting angry because of his daughters’ (who now have all the power) unwillingness to help him makes the readers believe that the king regrets his losing the power. This is the idea that is supported by Stephen Greenblatt in the introduction to the Tragedy of King Lear where the writer expresses an idea that “Lear is a man who has determined to retire from power, but who can not endure dependence” (Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies 574). Following the logic of this argument, a number of readers may agree that Lear who has got used to possessing almost unlimited powers felt unwilling to depend on somebody else, and his daughters in particular, which served as the main reason for conflict between them all, the conflict that the readers might think of as a mere war of generations; on the other hand, some attention should be paid to the improper behavior of daughters whose love for their father turned out to be measured by his financial welfare.
What should be mentioned above all in support of Greenblatt’s argument is that King Lear is depicted from the very beginning as a person who loves power and who enjoys his having it, which presupposes that he will not endure dependence as he retires from power. The matter is that people who possess a certain power over others quickly become arrogant and ambitious. Though this may seem stereotypic, it is indeed so because there are no ex-presidents who have become ordinary managers forced to report to their bosses every month. This simple real-life example perfectly illustrates Lear’s situation. The reader sees this king as an ambitious person who likes flattery. This is proven by his delight to hear how much two of his three daughters love him despite the fact that flattery in their words is evident. This is further supported by his getting angry because of the truth that his youngest daughter has told him. King Lear, like all the people who got used to having powers, resented what he thought to be arrogance and rudeness on the part of his daughter and wished to show that he was powerful enough to ruin somebody’s life. This situation, together with the overt injustice to the youngest daughter who, as it is possible to guess, the readers like, contributes greatly to the readers’ shaping their attitude towards the king. As it can be seen from Greenblatt’s opinion, this attitude is hardly positive for it presents Lear as a person taking pride in himself and, thus, being unable to appease with the idea that his loss of power will result in his dependence on somebody else. Faced with the necessity to ask for financial aid from the daughters to who he has transmitted his power, the king becomes resentful for he is not used to asking something from others. In this way, the play on the readers’ emotions and the writer’s (Shakespeare’s) skillful presentation of the character under consideration account for the readers’ idea that Lear who is already tired from ruling the country and who distributes his powers among his children does not wish to be dependent on the latter.
In addition, there is one more contributing factor that makes the readers believe that Lear was too proud, demanded too much from his daughters, and did not want to be dependent on them. This factor is a misunderstanding that has always been present between people of different generations. This is where Shakespeare’s unsurpassed skill should once again be appreciated. From the beginning of the story, he managed to set the readers against the king, which makes the majority of them support the daughters in the conflict between them and the king, the conflict that, as the readers might think, has emerged because of Lear’s reluctance to be dependent on his daughters. At the same time, however, the writer relies on the wisdom and prudence of another part of his readers, those who have discovered the evil intentions of the oldest two sisters as soon as the story began. In any way, the generation gap, or the conflict in the relations between children and parents, is what most of the readers might explain the conflict between Lear and his daughters with. With regards to this view, the king is perceived by the readers as an ordinary elderly person who may sometimes annoy his children with his odd requests. In the beginning, he distributes the kingdom only between the children who love him most, then he demands from the daughters to keep up the establishment of one hundred knights, and then he gets angry when he is denied in his requests. The king seems to be just a grumbling old man who, now that he is deprived of his powers (even though he gave them away from himself), cannot handle the dependency that he has to face every time he needs something. This supports Greenblatt’s argument that Lear feels too tired to rule his country and struggles when wishing to retire from power because he “can not endure dependence” (Norton Shakespeare: Tragedies 574). Thus, the readers relate this inner conflict within the king to the generation gap and problems that it may involve.
However, it is also possible to consider this situation from a totally different perspective, the perspective that presents Lear as a victim, rather than a person struggling between an inability to rule the country due to his respectable age and desire to remain independent. This perspective does not deny the idea that the king felt certain regret when he deprived himself of his powers, nor does it state that negative features were absent from his personality. Instead, it simply suggests that what has happened with King Lear does not have much to do with his arrogance or desire to stay independent. Where does the tragedy say that Lear could not handle dependence? He, just like a normal elderly person, had his needs and these needs, as I believe, should have been satisfied at least out of respect for all those years that he has given to his family and his country. There is no doubt that Lear deserves some reproach for how he treated his youngest daughter, but the remorse that he has felt at the end of the play when he realized the real value of a family for him shows that he simply made a mistake and was willing to correct it, even though it was already too late. This shows that a real malefactor here was not the king who was reluctant to become dependent on his daughters, but namely the daughters who made their father dependent on themselves. As soon as the king has given away his powers and, correspondingly, lost his possessions, the daughters understood that they could do well without him. They have established their own rules, thus, making the ex-king feel his dependency on them. It may seem that the king resented this dependency, whereas, in reality, he resented the rudeness and ingratitude on the part of his daughters who once told him how much they loved him. This was where the king understood that love consisted not of sweet words, but actions. His two older daughters turned out to be nothing but greedy and power-seeking hangers-on who had neither gratitude to their father, nor respect for him. In fact, his daughters hardly had respect for anybody or anything because they have been blinded by the power and money that they obtained. The subsequent madness of their father was only beneficial for them because no one could blame them for their unfair treatment of the former king. Therefore, Lear was not a person who could not appease with independence after he retired from power; he was a victim who was tricked by his own children and made dependent on them.
Taking into consideration everything mentioned above, it can be concluded that different views on King Lear’s situation exist. According to Stephen Greenblatt’s view, King Lear wanted to retire from his power but, at this, he also wished to stay independent. This argument may be supported by the fact that, for the years of his ruling, Lear has become arrogant and got used to power, which is why he considered it beneath his dignity to be dependent on somebody. This view can also be supported by the fact that Lear feared dependency similar to other elderly people who have misunderstandings with their families due to the presence of a generation gap. In contrast, there is an opposing view that Lear is a victim of his two older daughters’ evil deeds, and what he could not endure was the daughters’ ingratitude, rather than dependence on them. It is impossible to state which of these views is correct, though the end of the play shows that the opposing one is, for sure, not completely erroneous.