Lear, King | Marianne Novy (essay date 1984)
Marianne Novy (essay date 1984)
SOURCE: "Patriarchy, Mutuality, and Forgiveness in King Lear," in Love's Argument: Gender Relations in Shakespeare, The University of North Carolina Press, 1984, pp. 150-63.
[In the essay below, Novy addresses the vulnerabilities both male and female characters—in particular Lear and Cordelia—experience in the play, maintaining that their suffering results from behaviors imposed on them by the patriarchal structure of their society.]
If Othello explores patriarchal behavior in the husband, King Lear explores it in the father. Critics of King Lear have frequently noted that Lear begins with the power of the archetypal king and father; many of them have also noted that his initial lack of self-knowledge springs in part from the prerogatives of kingship. It has been less observed that the play includes implicit criticism of the prerogatives of the father and an exploration of...
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