King Lear and the "Absent Mother"

I think “the absent mother” had a profound affect on both King Lear and his daughters. Children need to see displays of love and affection, which Lear was incapable or unwilling to portray. He was foolish with his kingdom demanding the respect of being king, with none of its responsibilities. I find Kahn’s definition of the feminine powers somewhat sexist, but also true. I understand how stoicism and lack of emotion can equate to power in a man’s world. However, being patriarchal may have been too detrimental to his relationships with his daughters.

I agree with the first excerpt to the effect, that as the play goes on he realizes his vulnerability, dependence and capacity for feeling. At the beginning of the play, Lear tries to logically split the kingdom by having a competition to see who loves him most, but his daughters trick him. Cordelia does not participate in the charade, because she knows the other daughters are lying, and she loves him the most. King Lear shows a certain emotional immaturity when he creates the competition, because he is demanding a public show of affection. These actions come back to haunt him because when Cordelia refuses to participate, he misunderstands her sincerity. She says nothing because there are no words to express the depth of her love and loyalty to her father, and whatever she did say would be overshadowed by the false praises of her sisters. King Lear does realize his more feminine or emotional side through out the play, and he eventually becomes hysterical because of his inability to realize these emotions. I believe he realizes his feminine attributes, and while he does not become a better King, he becomes more caring and understanding.

King Lear sees weakness in tears, the excerpt defines as “women’s weapons,” I think Lear grows as a person to accept that a human being, and not only a woman, can be fragile and find solace in portraying emotion. His “life time of strenuous defense” has done nothing but made him blind and callous. He does grow as a person, and realizes at the end the error of his ways. He finally grows to the point where he can show his emotions. He realizes how unfair the competition was and at the end is loyal and caring towards Cordelia and even decides to stay in jail to be at her side. This shows a capacity for emotion that the Old Lear never would have been capable of.

The Moviegoer

In the novel, The Moviegoer by Walker Percy, I believe Binx’s search brought him to the realization that there is importance in everydayness. In the beginning of the novel, he spends his days making money, and chasing woman, he seems to find no fulfillment in religion or morality, only desiring pleasure devoid of any solid meaning for his life. Binx believes that to be sunk in everydayness is not thinking, and not thinking is not really living. His movie watching is an attempt to break through the everydayness, because he thinks movies are truer to reality, and he somewhat pretentiously views himself above the common man, because they are unaware of their everydayness. Binx decides to partake in a search, which is “what any man would undertake if he were not sunk in the everdayness of his own life […] to become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair. The movies are onto the search, but they screw it up. The search always ends in despair”(pg.13). Binx seemingly has a fear of being the common man, which he describes as being anyone, anywhere and not leaving a mark on the world as if one did not exist. What he fails to realize, which his aunt eloquently points out, is we are a nation built on common men. After he returns from Chicago with Kate, his aunt questions him as to how he could have been so careless, and what his meaning in life is, and he is silent. She explains to him that duty is important, and she believes she has failed him, “I did my best for you, son. I gave you all I had. More than anything I wanted to pass on to you the one heritage of the men of our family, a certain quality of spirit, a gaiety, a sense of duty, a nobility worn lightly, a sweetness, a gentleness with women- the only good thing the south ever had and the only thing that really matters in this life. I know you are not a bad boy-I wish you were. But how did it happen that none of this ever meant anything to you?” (pg 224) I believe this is the point in the book where he realizes that his search has been in vain. He has always known what he must do, and somewhat avoided it. He finds meaning in his life with Kate because he has found someone that truly needs him. Although, I do not think he has found what he originally thought he would, he is successful by finding beauty in the everydayness. Being able to help those around him makes him real and heroic.