The Wandering of King Lear’s Mother Essay - 1597 Words

The Wandering of King Lear’s Mother After he experiences all kinds of humiliation done by Goneril, and finds his messenger Kent in the stocks, King Lear, in Act 2 Scene 4, conjures up the â€Å"mother† to express his outburst of rage and physical symptom sensations: O! how this mother swells up toward my heart; Hysterica passio! down, thou climbing sorrow! Thy element’s below. Where is this daughter? (II.iv.56-58) Who is this â€Å"mother†? Or what is this â€Å"mother†? As many critics have identified, this â€Å"mother† is another name for the womb, matrix, or uterus. That the â€Å"mother swells up† points to the disease called hysteria. Yet, who is responsible for the rise or wandering of Lear’s â€Å"mother†? Does†¦show more content†¦Ã¢â‚¬Å"Besides the English name of the mother, or the suffocation of the mother, the disease goes under several other names† (Camden 391). As Jorden writes, â€Å"This disease is called by diverse names amongst our Authors, Passio Hysterica, Suffocatio, Prafocatio, and Strangulatus uteri, Caducus matrices, etc.† (5) We may wonder what has Lear to do with the mother, since his anatomy is obviously deficient of such a disease. How does the mother affect Lear as well as his relationship to other characters? Is Lear a male hysteric? It is obvious that the mother revealed and represented by Lear’s words is a complex representational figure, simultaneously â€Å"real† and â€Å"fantasized†. It is â€Å"real† in the sense that Lear can in no way deny or repress the mother’s urgent emergency and her terrifying power and wrath. 1 It is â€Å"fantasized† in the sense that there is simply no bodily space to mark her presence. On the other hand, the mother can be viewed as a metaphor employed by Lear to express his emotional and physical states. Given the entire absence of literal mothers in the play, this conjuring up of the mother seems particularly significant and meaningful. The purpose of this paper is to explore the theme of hysteria and to trace the wandering of this mother and its manifestations in Shakespeare’s King Lear from a feminist perspective. The obscure, restless, andShow MoreRelatedMental Illness in Shakespeares Works1371 Words   |  6 Pagesprominently are King Lear, Hamlet, and Macbeth, while also managing to showcase the conception of mental illness at the time. Of the three plays, King Lear is the one that examines mental illness the most. King Lear is the story of the titular king, Lear, his decision to exclude his third daughter, Cordelia, from her inheritance, the abuse he suffers at the hands of his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan, and his descent into insanity, before dying. Possibly the first indication of Lear’s madness isRead More An Analysis of On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again Essay1144 Words   |  5 Pages An Analysis of On Sitting Down To Read King Lear Once Again nbsp; The poem On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again by John Keats is a sonnet about Keats relationship with the drama that became his idea of tragic perfection, and how it relates to his own struggle with the issues of short life and premature death. Keats uses the occasion of the rereading this play to explore his seduction by it and its influence on himself and his ways of looking at himself and his situation in spite