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Freudian and Kleinian Psychoanalysis on King Lear

Research · June 2016

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2802.9042

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Freudian and Kleinian Psychoanalysis of

Shakespeare’s King Lear

“The madman is a dreamer awake” – Sigmund Freud

The field of psychoanalysis or psychoanalytic readings provides a host of new insights into

the field of human knowledge and study of the human psyche. Classic psychoanalytic

readings focus on the individual or subjective rather than the social or contextual

circumstances. The idea of an unconscious motive or desire, fuelling the conscious awareness

of an individual, has led to a number of theoretical approaches to the human psyche, the

functioning thereof as well as new insights into infants’ mental and emotional development

through the processes of gender appropriation and adaptation into society. Theorists such as

Sigmund Freud and Melanie Klein have researched the mental processing and assimilation of

infants towards their parents and external objects, as well as the consequences of

unsuccessful assimilations and appropriations. Freud continued to research the human

psyche, especially the distortion thereof through trauma. Jacques Lacan re-established

Freud’s psychoanalytical concepts by drawing strongly on the interpretation and use of

language during the psychoanalytical reading of a patient.

Sigmund Freud was one of the first psychoanalytic theorists to identify the idea of a split

mind – the conscious (Cs) and the unconscious (UNs) (Freud, 1900: 397-399). The
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identification and naming of a pre-existing unconscious, though his research on dream

interpretations, implied that all humans are driven by this unconscious and that all humans

are born with drives and desires. This implies that as all humans are born with a psyche,

structured in this dualism, no behaviour or words communicated are accidental – there is no

hidden meaning in one’s actions and words (Freud, 1900: 397). Assuming that the

relationship between a patient’s unconscious and conscious is normal, the desires reside in

the unconscious dream thought, and are made manifest through dream content where in a

number of symbols may be condensed thoughts seeping through the veil between the

conscious and the unconscious.

Freud identified a premise in which he states that dreams are how material in the unconscious

becomes conscious (Freud, 1900: 400). The metaphorical representation of the material is a

contested area in which the meaning of a metaphor can only be inferred from the information

the patient discloses. The metaphor is a substitute for the symbol in the equation of the

symbol and symbolised:

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Therefore, it can be argued that all dream material, or dream content is metaphorical (Freud,

1900: 400-402). This metaphorical representation of dream thoughts presents itself though

numerous cognitive concepts. The first concept identified by Freud is The Work of

Condensation (Freud, 1900: 401-402). Freud elaborates that the metaphor is the condensation

of a host of ideas into a single representation:

The metaphor of a rose encompasses a number of represented ideas that includes a

psychological or cognitive connection. This may be the representation of love, the

representation of death, the colour of blood that is represented by the colour spectrum of the

rose perceived by the patient, the representation of timeless beauty just as the timeless

existence of a rose or the flourishing of a flowering of the rose may represent life itself to the

patient. The specific meaning of the metaphor can only make itself manifested through what

the patient or the text discloses. Freud continues to argue that “Dreams are beliefs, meagre

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and laconic in comparison with the range and wealth of the dream-thoughts” (Freud, 1900:

401). He goes on to say that:

“If a dream is written out it may perhaps fill half a page. The analysis setting out of

the dream-thought underlying it may occupy six, eight, or a dozen times as much

space”

(Freud, 1900: 104).

Freud warns against an ignorant and absolutist approach to the interpretation of dreams in

stating that “[…] it is in fact never possible to be sure that a dream has been completely

interpreted” (Freud, 1900: 401) and that there will always be more content to analyse. A

complete dream interpretation is further complicated by the fact that patients seldom

remember the whole dream. A patient may only remember the dreamt rose but none of the

other dream content. However, the “fragment[ed] remnant of the total dream-work” (Freud,

1900: 401) can contain just as much dream thoughts as the complete dream. Even though

dreams may not always be remembered entirely it is quite possible to recollect and remember

the dream content though immediate notation after awakening. The majority of people would

forget what they dreamt and the content “becomes more and more incomplete” (Freud, 1900:

401) but detailed notations of the dream content could assist in dream recollection and dream

analysis. All elements in the dream content is of equal significance initially as “[…] only a

small minority of dream-thoughts revealed are represented in the dream by one of their

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ideological elements” (Freud, 1900: 401). Freud continues to state that condensation is,

therefore, the act of omitting information though the dream process.

The second concept introduced by Freud is The Work of Displacement in which Freud argues

that “In making our collection of instances of condensation in dreams, the existence of

another relations, probably of no less importance, had already become evident” (Freud, 1900:

401) implying that the metaphor acts as a substitute. Through metonymy, part of an object

symbolises the symbolised complete object:

A second development on Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is his research into Trauma Theory,

conducted on World War II soldiers (Freud, 1920: 431). He found that the soldiers kept on

returning and readdressing horrible experiences – an unstable and constant migration between

the conscious and unconscious. The internalisation of the consequences of the traumatic

event is unsatisfactorily located in the unconscious and made manifest through certain acts

like repetition compulsions but it is never truly processed or stored in the human mind. In this

theory Sigmund Freud argues that all drives have an outcome of satisfaction closely linked to

the pleasure principle. Freud explains the premises of the pleasure principle through the

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analogy of a child playing, repeatedly throwing his toy away and retrieving the toy. He states

that the control of the situation is pleasurable for the child in the act of throwing the object

away and retrieving the object on his own terms (Freud, 1920: 432). Freud noticed the

repetition of this act and the pleasure it brought to the child.

This identified pleasure principle provides a platform for the study and analysis of disorders

like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in patients and allows for the explanation of

certain set individual rituals. The “compulsion to repeat” (Freud, 1920: 434) arises during the

psychoanalytic reading and treatment of a patient through constant repetitive actions and

compulsions of patients. This may or may not be related to the specific traumatic event itself.

Like dreams, traumatic events are seldom remembered as a holistic detailed experience as the

conscious and unconscious workings of a patient’s repressed the memory or event. Freud

claims that:

“The patient cannot remember the whole of what is repressed in him, and what he

cannot remember may be precisely the essential part of it. Thus, he acquires no sense

of conviction of the correctness of the construction that has been communicated to

him. He is obliged to repeat the repressed material as a contemporary experience

instead of, as the physician would prefer to see, remembering it as something

belonging to the past”

(Freud, 1920: 434)

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Freud argues that the patient experiences a continuous need to go back to the experience

though this repetition even though the patient suffers from an inability to completely recall

the events. Furthermore, Freud states that the human mind cannot process traumatic events

and is thus mentally rejected and repressed. This is because traumatic events are

unconventional experiences and the human mind does not have the mental capacity to

essentially process the trauma (Freud, 1920: 431-436). Using the analogy of a container and a

lid, it can be explained that if the traumatic events are not properly processed and stored in

the human mind, but rather placed in a small unconscious container of which the lid fits

imperfectly, the consequences of the unprocessed and unconscious trauma will arise and

break the veil between the conscious and unconscious eventually. The identification of the

resisting plane needs to be recognised in order to be processed. Freud concludes on his

trauma theory by stating that he himself does not know what lies beyond pleasure and that it

is unknown why trauma is so irresolvable.

Melanie Klein developed on Freud’s psychoanalytic works in developing the Object

Relations Theory, providing further insight into the infant-parental relationship. The theory

argues that the human brain identifies people as objects through specific patterns and

categories in which the first of these patterns are identified in infants (Hayes, 2002: 2).

Within these patterns binaries of polarity is identified as:

Me Not me

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Good Bad

Male Female

These categories are internalised into the infant’s unconscious as some form of representation

of reality. These objects or introjects are then used for future interactions as a blueprint for

appropriation in the infant’s projective identification:

Mother Object / Introject Experiences with all older females

Klein identified the splitting phenomenon which states that infants perceive objects either as

entirely good or entirely bad (Hayes, 2002: 2). This perceived split is determined by the

immediate experience with the specific object and only through maturity do infants come to a

realisation and internalisation that the very same perceived bad object can also be good.

Where Freud’s psychoanalytic theory is concerned with the libido, Klein’s research into the

infant psyche and development thereof focuses on the thanatos. The aggressive/death instinct

of the psyche comes into play when the infant feels indecisive towards a previously perceived

loved object. This previously good or loved object may be the route of a feeling of frustration.

Klein argues that this leads to a split object or introject where the infant’s aggressive instinct

leads to the killing of the object in the infant’s fantasy – the Paranoid Schizoid Position

(Hayes, 2002: 3). This primitive mental state is immediately followed by a sense of sadness

that motivates the reintegration, or reparation, of the good into the bad through the concept

and act of love.

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The implications are that we perceive others based on past experiences where we use

introjects from the past. This, in coordination with a Self Object, leads to the reintegrating our

bad self with our good self.

Limitations, as identified by Freud, in the psychoanalysis of a patient can be identified in the

psychoanalytic reading of a text. The first limitation Freud warns against is the degree of

disclosure of the patient. A text, like the disclosures of a patient, is a collection of metaphors

and associations that are reflections or symptoms at a narrative level (Freud, 1900: 397-412).

The theory allows for the individual consideration and exploration of the human psyche

unlike formalism and structuralism which is not concerned with neither the characters nor the

individualism of characters. An analyst cannot attempt to make connections beyond the

information disclosed by the patient just as the analyst of a text should not infer beyond what

the text discloses.

The concept of censoring ideas is supported by the Nazi eco-philosopher Martin Heidegger

(1889-1976) who states that “responsible humans have an implicit duty to let things disclose

themselves in their own inimitable way, rather than forcing meaning and identities that suit

[the humans’] own instrumental value” (Garrard, 2012: 34). Heidegger further states that

“language […] rightly understood discloses to us the act of disclosure itself” (Garrard, 2012:

34-35). Even though psychoanalytic theory seeks to explore metaphors and the dream

thought, it argued that humans should avoid instrumentalism (ge-stell) in reducing meaning

to “narrow and reductive terms” (Garrard, 2012: 35). The literature must disclose symbols for

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the reader to make sense as the language of the text reveals what characters are revealing and

not revealing. The reader is essentially the analyst who has his or her own conscious and

unconscious engaging in interpretation – the reader seeks pleasure in the painful. But this is

where the reader’s role stops. The reader cannot move beyond the disclosure of the text and

ultimately, not beyond his or her unconscious.

A second limitation identified is the analytic fallacy of regarding the text as an unproblematic

reflection of the author’s psyche. The text foregrounds the relationship between the conscious

and the unconscious in a network of complex associations and suggested representation. The

author presents certain motives and even deflections that either reveal or conceal. The text is

not a transcript of the author nor should it be regarded as a dream of the author. Even though

a text is not ideologically free the psychoanalytic reading should purely focus on the

disclosure of the text and the characterisation of the characters. The text is not a

psychological revealing of the author’s ideological supporting themes nor can the author’s

psyche be read into the text. The text should provide sufficient evidence to avoid the third

limitation of speculation.

The reader or analyst, as a being with a conscious and a psyche of his or her own, should

avoid making speculations and assumptions based on fragmented disclosures of the text and

possible meanings. Even though it is the role of the psychoanalyst to look for the repressed in

the text, if the text does not provide sufficient evidence, the conclusion drawn is a speculation

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and not a psychological inference. Furthermore, as a fourth limitation, the reader should

avoid making ungrounded character diagnoses.

The fifth limitation identified is the issue of masculinity. Psychoanalytic readings account for

the male perspective and integrative role in the initiation and appropriation of psychoanalytic

theories. These theories and the psychoanalytic readings of texts provide very little evidence

and textual space for women to function in. Feminists like Simone De Beauvoir state that

women are perceived as mythical entities that are merely cultural and social narratives

supporting traditional values and beliefs (De Beauvoir, 1949: 95). This assumption

undermines the superficial masculine idea that all women are to be happy housewives.

Woman have been categorised and perceived in extremes as De Beauvoir identified “the

Praying Mantis, the Mandrake, the Demon, then it is most confusing to find in women also

the Muse, the Goddess Mothers, Beatrice” (De Beauvoir, 1949: 96). De Beauvoir argues that

“he [man] perceives the presence of a ‘mystery’ outside himself” (De Beauvoir, 1949: 96).

Even though De Beauvoir identified the lack of a “masculine mystery” (De Beauvoir, 1949:

96), the male is the normative form and the female is perceived as the other, she also states

that the true woman must accept her either socially constructed biologically inherited identity

as the other.

Psychoanalytic theories seldom allow for the female or women to internalise some form of

social realisation and a chance to emerge to an accepted other self. The female or mother’s

role is identified within strict and narrow introjectory margins.

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The last limitation is the need for a distinction between metaphor and reality – the

metaphorical mother and father, and the actual mother and father. Freud’s psychoanalytic

concept of a mother and a father figure in the Law of the Father is recontextualised and

rephrased by Jacques Lacan as a “paternal function” (Baron, 2006: 307). He argues that the

“performance” (Baron, 2006: 307) is not a personal performance but rather the initiation of a

social appropriation – the first outline of the Oedipus Complex. This led to his principle of

differentiation and separation – Law of Language. The post-Freudian concept defines a

mother as conditions that make one feel whole through the structure of relationships.

However, the premises and time lapses of these feelings of wholeness is not guaranteed. The

mother is a metaphor - always in a state of separation from what she desires.

The successful interactions and social appropriations between the mother and father and the

infant, as described by Freud, are only successful within a nuclear family structure. This

family structure, of a father, mother and child, is not the modern norm anymore and family

dynamics are very different (Donald, Lazarus and Lolwana, 2012: 31-77). The theory does

not take into account homogenous parental family structures.

Freud and Klein’s psychoanalytic theories both provide numerous theoretical grounds for the

explanation and appropriation of patient and textual disclosures of the conscious informed by

the unconscious. These grounds can be regarded as initial theoretical blue prints to analyse

and investigate character behaviour, actions and ultimately, the consequences thereof. The

focus on the infant and the development of mental states through maturity provides insight

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and grounds for character exploration and motives. The theory of psychoanalysis itself needs

be regulated and meticulously appropriated as to avoid forced and ungrounded meaning and

connections. The reader or analyst is engaging in various interpretations from their own

conscious and unconscious, as the reader or analyst is an emotional being themselves. The

interpretations of the patient’s disclosure or the characters in the text is highly dependent on

language which is the medium of disclosure of motives and deflections.

“The mind is like an iceberg. It floats with one-seventh

of its bulk above water” – Sigmund Freud

Shakespeare’s King Lear lends itself to multiple psychoanalytical readings such as ones that

attend to the Freudian Incest Taboo intertwined with the Kleinian Object Relations Theory.

What is important to note is that the character of King Lear himself does not have a soliloquy

which provides unlimited access to his thoughts. However, a psychoanalytic reading can

provide some insight into his psyche and unconscious that is seeping through his conscious

by critically examining his and other characters’ language and behaviour throughout the play.

Accepting the Freudian Incest Taboo in an analysis allows for a number of reader and

observer effects. This includes the Freudian psychoanalytic terms of terror and pity the

members of the audience or readers of the play may experience in their “purge” (Chiu, 2012:

34) of emotions as they find “pleasure or enjoyment in [their] emotional life” (Chiu, 2012:

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34). This cleansing effect is experienced at the end of the pay when the social and hierarchal

structures are returned to their original state. Freud argues that the Oedipus complex lies in

the unconscious of each individual and that:

“Every member of the audience was once a budding Oedipus in fantasy, and this

dream-fulfilment played out in reality causes everyone to recoil in horror, with the full

measure of repression which separates his infantile from his present state”

(Chiu, 2012: 34).

The opening scene introduces the absence of mothers in the play where a general

motherlessness is created for all characters. The mother figure in the play is crudely

sexualised and objectified to a mere figure of absence throughout the play. The mother is

talked about but never present. This objectification and introjection of the mother leads to a

number of serious conceptual and social consequences. Gloucester crudely sexualises the

mother figure in conversation with Kent when stating that his mistress “grew round-wombed”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 14) through “breeding” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 9) and that there

was “good sport” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 23) at his legitimate son’s conception. This

explicit textual and characteristic disregard for the motherly figure places the ultimate fate of

the motherless characters at a grave disposition. The consequences of this vulgar expression

cannot be disregarded in the proceedings of the play and the fates characters are, then,

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destined to meet. Throughout the play various references are made to mother figures in

rejectory manners.

Lear displays an emotional disposition and disconnection to his mother in stating that “I

would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb” (Shakespeare, 2008, 2.2: 32). This extreme

representation of an absent mother figure infers an objectification and introjection on Lear’s

part – he displays an aggressive attitude towards the mother figure (Bott-Spillius, Couve,

Garvey, Milton,and Steiner, 2011: 3-576). According to the Object Relations Theory, like any

other infant, Lear objectified his mother during infancy but his actions as a grown man, father

and king, provides evidence to claim that he never truly matured to the point where he was

able to move beyond the splitting principle. Lear seldom displays a mature mental state and

rather more often primitive mental states. Lear demands a form of validation from his

daughters that can be regarded as internal objects or introjects which he sees as good – his

projective identification of them is not frustrating but rather pleasing and acceptable for his

fantasies (Bott-Spillius et al, 2011: 3-576). Lear’s projective identification of his fears into

the validation he demands from his daughters might just be his unconscious defending what it

fears most. These defences are the pathological organisation of Lear’s personality where this

unconscious fantasy of Lear forms the platform for all his symptoms, patterns, thoughts,

dreams, and of course, his defences.

At first it is Cordelia who refuses to fulfil his fantasies but later, as the play progresses,

Goneril and Regan too reject their father’s demands. Because of his daughters’ denial to fulfil

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his fantasies Lear ultimately descends into a false fantasy. This plays out through a number of

events and denial on his daughters’ part, firstly denied by Cordelia. Unlike Cordelia’s initial

response, Goneril and Regan’s initial declarations of love for Lear appear somewhat sexual

when stating that “Beyond all manner of so much I love you” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 63)

and “[…] I am alone felicitate in you highness’ love” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 75-76). These

demands and confessions of a “darker purposes” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 36) is exactly what

Cordelia refuses to confess and through her denial of fulfilling his desire for wholeness,

reveals Lear’s incestuous intents. Cordelia refuses to behave according to the objectified view

her father had internalised her to be and because of his lack of maturity and his splitting

tendency, immediately instate her as bad – bad as a daughter to a father and as a subject to a

king.

As aforementioned, Lear displays behavioural aspects that would indicate that he has not

matured beyond splitting. This is evident in the play of events when Cordelia refuses to fulfil

his fantasy of validation. To Lear’s demands of “Who of you shall we say doth love us most”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 52) Cordelia merely replies thrice with “nothing” (Shakespeare,

2008, 1.1: 88). Unlike Goneril and Regan Cordelia does not lend herself as an object of

Lear’s fantasy fulfilment or his unconscious lust for wholeness. This refusal on Cordelia’s

part initiated Lear’s thanatos (aggression or death instinct), which is a mental Paranoid-

Schizoid Position in which he defends himself through a fantasy killing of Cordelia through

anger and rejection. Lear’s reaction is because these unconscious and repressed desires have

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not only been made manifest but rejected too. The once “ample” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 81)

and “fair” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 81) Cordelia is immediately and entirely split from

entirely good to entirely bad. Lear reacts with pure anger in stating that:

“Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a

stranger to my heart and me hold thee from this forever. The barbarous Scythian”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 117-118)

Lear’s Paranoid-Schizoid Position is the psychological platform through which his primitive

anger seeps through the veil between the two extreme primitive positions - of good to bad

and as familiar as a family member to as unfamiliar as Nomadic tribes were to the English.

The regulation between the splitting extremes and the primitive mental states can only occur

and develop over time through a maturing process (Bott-Spillius et al, 2011: 3-576). Lear

displays very little control over the exertion and stating of his disappointment in Cordelia’s

refusal.

Lear’s introjectory view and application of an implied past experience has a number of

consequences - for when Lear act as a father to Cordelia, he acts as a father to a nation. These

two roles are indistinguishable as the Elizabethan hierarchy of social order is just as much a

representation of the Elizabethan family structure. There is a sense of destabilisation in both

the country and the family of Lear as a consequence of his irrational actions and his

incestuous behaviour. A number of psychoanalytic theorists have examined the role of the

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father and according to the majority and leading perceptions, Lear abused his privileged

position.

Taking into consideration Freud’s Incest Taboo, the character of Lear reacted with anger and

denial to Cordelia’s meticulous responses to his somewhat incestuous and suggestive

demands. Lear expresses himself in a sudden turn of events that he “disclaims” (Shakespeare,

2008, 1.1: 114) Cordelia and as a result of his said abuse of his power, both as a father and a

king, descends into further anger and some would say, into madness. This is evident

throughout the development of the play when Goneril and Regan refuse to fulfil his desires:

“It may be so, my Lord. Hear, nature hear; dear goddess, hear! Suspend thy purpose,

if thou didst intend to make this creature fruitful! Into her womb convey sterility! Dry

up in her the organs of increase, and from her derogate body never spring a babe to

honour her!”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.4: 287-293)

Lear displays an absolute disregard for the potential motherhood Goneril may experience by

exclaiming his metaphorical killing of her potential child. In stating his wishes for sterility

upon her he splits her into a complete bad object and denying her her only biological purpose

as a female in the context of the text of King Lear – to grow “round-wombed” (Shakespeare,

2008, 1.1: 14) though “breeding” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 9). Lear denies Goneril her

seemingly only purpose which is motherhood, that, like all other mothers in the play, she

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cannot enjoy. Unlike all the other mothers, it is not Goneril who is absent but rather the child.

It may be argued that unconsciously Lear wishes in a selfish state to claim that position of the

child. This is evident from the beginning of the play when Lear states to Kent that that he

“thought to rest on her [Cordelia’s] kind nursery” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 124-125). As a

result of his primitive and immature mental states, Lear is unable to fully mature within the

margins of Kleinian theory. He regresses into anger whenever his own children refuse to

fulfil his fantasies and when his repressed desires and intentions are revealed and made

manifest.

Lear continues to display anger beyond rationality when he is unable to consider his own kin

or bloodline in wishing on Goneril a child of unnaturalness when he recognises his own

repressed intentions and desires:

“If she must teen, create her child of spleen, that may live and be a thwart, disnatured

torment to her! Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth, With cadent tears fret

channels in her cheeks, Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits to laughter and

contempt, that she may feel how sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless

child”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.4: 293-301)

Lear’s anger beyond rationality or comprehension is both the product of his inability to

mature beyond the splitting principle and the fact that his incestuous behaviour and

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unconscious intents and desires have been made manifest through the actions and words of

those around him. Freudian theory claims that the unconscious is constantly informing the

conscious - there is not hidden meaning or a slip of the tongue. Lear himself makes his

desires manifest by referring to his “appetite” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 119) for the fulfilment

of these desires. However, the fulfilment of these desires would be false as the wholeness he

seeks can never be obtained. Lear continues to refer to Cordelia as his “sometimes daughter”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 121) inferring a dual function perhaps as a daughter to a father, a

subject to a king and a lover. Taking into consideration Lacan’s adaptation of the Derridian

deconstruction into psychoanalysis it can be argued that Lear is a slave to language (Lacan,

1957: 448-449). He fails to successfully avoid his incestuous intents as there is a “bi-univocal

correspondence” (Lacan, 1957: 448) between the words he uses and what he actually refers

to. Considering Lear’s statement of Cordelia as his “sometime daughter” (Shakespeare, 2008,

1.1: 121) and his incestuous intents Lear’s words betray him:

Lear’s attempts to avoid the manifestation of his desires are unsuccessful as the conscious,

his spoken words with superficial intent and function, will always be influenced by the

unconscious and his deepest desires and fantasy providing his words with ambiguous

meaning to a reader or analyst.

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The Incest Taboo is further implicated and made manifest through the signification failure of

other characters. Regarding Goneril and Regan as Lear’s objects or introjects, they act

according to his demands and expectations. The attempted fulfilment of the desire for love

through language allows for the proposal of incestuous claims. This also explains Cordelia’s

reasoning in denying abiding to his demands. Cordelia asks “Why have my sisters husbands,

if they say they love you all?” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 100-101) and Burgundy who states to

Cordelia “I am sorry then you have so lost a father that you must lose a husband”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 246-247). The manifestation of the taboo is evident in his

unconscious informing his conscious as it is argued that the only separation between a father

and a husband is sexual intercourse. However, these lines seem to be blurred in his statement

as:

Cordelia’s unconscious social appropriation and clear perspective seeps through to her

conscious in stating that “use well our father” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 273-274) inferring

intimate knowledge of the dynamics of the interactions between Goneril, Regan and Lear. It

is also Cordelia’s initial refusal of fulfilling Lear’s fantasies that initiated his Paranoid-

Schizoid Position in which he reacted to the manifestation of his unconscious intent and

desire. Cordelia’s honest and appropriate refusal infers a number of said issues. She explains

Lear’s raising of her as a child through ambiguous language stating that “You have begot me,

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bred me, loved me” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 98), revealing a horrific and awful truth to Lear

through the use of crude and ambiguous language. It can only be speculated, based on the

acceptance of the premise of the Incest Taboo, that Goneril and Regan immediately knew

how to respond to their father’s immediate demands for love.

An additional manifestation of the Incest taboo is made when Edmund explicitly talks about

the “unnaturalness between the child and the parent” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.2: 149-150). Lear

himself makes reference to “concealing” (Shakespeare, 2008, 3.2: 58) and “close pent-up

guilts” (Shakespeare, 2008, 3.2: 57) unconsciously referring to his fantasies:

concealing ent u guilt

Kent is the voice of reason and law throughout the play as he recognises and reverts the

incestuous interactions and inferred madness of King Lear back to rationality. Kent explicitly

acknowledges the taboo in talking to Lear about “this hideous rashness” (Shakespeare, 2008,

1.1: 152) and the “evil” (Shakespeare, 2008, 1.1: 168). Similar to Kent is the Fool who, can

be claimed, is the embodiment of Lear’s unconscious. Parallel to Lear’s sanity, the Fool

disappears throughout the play implying that there is no more need for him. Stating that:

“I have used it, nuncle, ever since thou madest thy daughters thy mother. For when

thou gavest them the rod and puttest down thine own breeches […] I marvel what kin

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thou and thy daughters are; they’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou’lt have

me whipped for lying [..]”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 1.4: 178-191)

Conventionally, the Fool would be the king’s adviser or some norm to measure all thought to.

The Fool in King Lear could be argued to be the manifestation of Lear’s sanity – the

unconscious seeping though the veil into the conscious as much of what the Fool is saying is

the truth. It is exactly this truth, the truth about his desires, actions and intent, and his

daughter’s refusal of fulfilling these desires, that fuels Lear’s irrationality and madness. His

rationality, voice of reason and sanity slowly dissipate though his inability merge his splitting

perceptions of introjects.

Through reparation Lear is able to restore his relationship with Cordelia but the taboo is still

evident within their interactions. Once again, Lear is a slave to language and his own words

betray him. It is his own words that reveal his unconscious incestuous intents in stating that:

“No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds I’ the

cage. When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down and ask of thee forgiveness. So

we’ll live, and pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh at gilded butterflies, and

hear poor rogues talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too, Who loses and who

wins, who’s in, who’s out; and take upon’s the mystery of things, as if we were God’s

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spies; and we’ll wear out, in a walled prison, packs and sects of great ones that ebb

and flow by the moon”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 5.3: 8-19)

Lear’s statement to Cordelia is of an incestuous nature between a father and a daughter as the

seemingly intimate words seem more fitting between an old married couple and not within

the conventional relationship between a father and a daughter. This is further evident in

Lear’s extremely dramatic and emotional reaction to Cordelia’s death:

“Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones. Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d

use them so that heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone forever! I know when one s

dead and when one lives; She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass; If that her

breath will mist or stain the stone, why, then she lives”

(Shakespeare, 2008, 5.3: 256-264)

Because of Lear’s acutely inappropriate internalisation and objectification of Cordelia he is

unable to accept her death in claiming that “This feather stirs; she lives. If it be so, it is a

chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt” (Shakespeare, 2008, 5.3: 266-

268).

Lear’s inability to mature beyond his primitive mental states and his demanding need for the

fulfilment of his incestuous desires initiated and fuelled his decline into madness and

fatalistic fate. His fate had been determined by his abuse of his privilege as a father and as a

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king – this had devastating consequences for his family and the kingdom. He cannot move

beyond his splitting mental state nor can he assimilate the good and bad of one person into a

holistic view. Lear’s only reaction is that of anger as he constantly reverts to the Paranoid

Schizoid Position when his desires are not being fulfilled or when his repressed intents are

made manifest through his own, or other character’s inability to fully convey what they mean

to say. Both Lear and the other characters are slaves to the language they use and their words

are ambiguous. The destabilisation of Lear’s family and the kingdom displays the regression

of Lear in his symbolic formation and internalisation of events throughout the play when he

cannot come to accept Cordelia’s death. Order to the destabilised kingdom is only restored

once Lear, the destabilising and destabilised catalyst to the ruling family and kingdom, is

removed.

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