Free King Lear Essays: What a Difference One Word Can Make :: Essays on King Lear

What a Difference One Word Can Make in King Lear King Lears response to Cordellias failure to verbalise her drive in for her father in words is symbolic of King Lears madness in the play. His madness is most clearly manifest in his need for his daughters to admit to him of their love. Cordellias failure to say that she loves him winds up destroying him. What is fascinating though is that it is not the rejection of him that hurts so much as his dismay that his daughter would say such a thing. The destruction line of the selection (Conflated Version 1.1.94) highlights Lears anger at not only the words that Cordellia speaks, but Cordellia herself. In this line King Lear warns Cordellia that if she doesnt change her ways she depart lose her inheritance, Variant Mend your speech a little, Lest Variant may mar your Fortunes.(1.1.93-94). The second variant in these lines changes the meaning of King Lears wrath. In the 1608 quarto version the variant text reads, it. The, it in thi s case is referring to what Cordellia has give tongue to. In the 1623 Folio version the word, it has been replaced by the word, you. This variant between the two editions might seem small fry but in fact it changes the meaning of Lears anger from anger at Cordellias speech to anger at Cordellia herself. This change has two major effects on the play. First, it shows the madness of King Lear. In the quarto version his anger is directed at Cordellias speech. This is rational way of dealing with the situation and shows that King Lear still has love for his daughter. He loves her but not what she has said. In contrast in the folio version King Lears madness is evident in his inability to separate what Cordellia has said from his love for her. King Lear like a lunatic sees Cordellias inability to pronounce her love in front of her conniving sisters to be a blanket asseveration that she does not love him. He is unable to reason that her statement might have logic because he himself has no logic. He doesnt see that his breaking of the concatenation of being by abdicating his throne and dividing up his kingdom has also destroyed the chain of being in his own family. His daughters usurp his power as he violates the order of the universe.