A few pplz have asked for this so here you guys go.
A FREUDIAN READING
Rob Pope in The English Studies Book gives a general overview of Freud's main theories including the importance of dream, the idea of the conscious and the unconscious, the theory of psychological repression and the importance Freud attached to myth and psycho drama,the id, ego and super ego
Freud published his interpretation of King Lear in his Collected Papers:
Papers on Metapsyohology, Papers on Applied Psychoanalysis, Vol 4 in 1925. The article was called The Theme of the Three CaSkets'.
A Freudian reading sees the play as having links with other tales and myThs. These are the tale of Cinderella, the myth of Paris who had to choose between three Goddesses, the myth of Psyche who fell in love with the mysterious Cupid when he was disguised the story of the three caskets in the Merchant of Venic& and the myth of the three Fates who weave and decide our destiry. Most of these tales involve three sisters, one of whom is noticeably fairer and younger than the others. Freud suqqests that the reason Ccrdetia masks her true self and remains dumb is that she represents death Dumbness in dreams is a familiar representation of death Cinderella also represents death in that she conceals herself by disappearing from view.
If Cordelia is the Goddes of Death, then the three sisters must represent the Fates The Moerae of Geek mythlogy, the third of whom is called Atropos the inexorable.
Yet isn't this a contradiction - that The most faithful of the daughters should represent Death? In a way, says Freud, it is the very acme of contradiction, because if a man chooses The third daughter, as his most favoured he therefore shows his free choice, yet no man willingly and freely chooses death to which by destiny alone man falls a victim
The explanation of he third sister representing death still holds because of the following reasoning.
Man struggles against being subject to death. So instead of death he imagines the Goddess of Love. So the third sister no longer seems to be death in his eyes, but the best, most lovable woman. (His imagination rebels against death so he projects onto her, and sees his desire rather than seeing what she rosily is.) The Goddess of Death is replaced by the Goddess of Love.
The same explanation answers how it is that the man chooses the third sister. for as we know, we do not choose Death. Again a wished-for reversal! is found. Choice stands in for Destiny end Necessity. Again wish fufilment is in operation.
The free choice is really no free choice. He must chose the third sister or evil will befall, There are just enough hints around the character of the third sister to suggest something uncanny about her, so that be audience and the protagonist might guess who she really is. Lear is a dying man who is not willing to let go of the love of women - hence he divides his inheritance and wishes to hear how much be is loved. The three sisters represent all the three inevitable relations man has with women - the mother who bears him, the companion of his bed and board and the destroyer.
The final entry of Lear with Cordelia carried in his arms is more properly seen as reversed if looked at in psychological terns. Rather than Lear canying the dead body of Cor~elia, she is the Death Goddess who is actually bearing him away: Eternal wisdom bids the old marl renounce love, choose death and "make fiends with the necessity of dying This is the reason the main character of Lear is aged and dying.
A FREUDIAN READING
Rob Pope in The English Studies Book gives a general overview of Freud's main theories including the importance of dream, the idea of the conscious and the unconscious, the theory of psychological repression and the importance Freud attached to myth and psycho drama,the id, ego and super ego
Freud published his interpretation of King Lear in his Collected Papers:
Papers on Metapsyohology, Papers on Applied Psychoanalysis, Vol 4 in 1925. The article was called The Theme of the Three CaSkets'.
A Freudian reading sees the play as having links with other tales and myThs. These are the tale of Cinderella, the myth of Paris who had to choose between three Goddesses, the myth of Psyche who fell in love with the mysterious Cupid when he was disguised the story of the three caskets in the Merchant of Venic& and the myth of the three Fates who weave and decide our destiry. Most of these tales involve three sisters, one of whom is noticeably fairer and younger than the others. Freud suqqests that the reason Ccrdetia masks her true self and remains dumb is that she represents death Dumbness in dreams is a familiar representation of death Cinderella also represents death in that she conceals herself by disappearing from view.
If Cordelia is the Goddes of Death, then the three sisters must represent the Fates The Moerae of Geek mythlogy, the third of whom is called Atropos the inexorable.
Yet isn't this a contradiction - that The most faithful of the daughters should represent Death? In a way, says Freud, it is the very acme of contradiction, because if a man chooses The third daughter, as his most favoured he therefore shows his free choice, yet no man willingly and freely chooses death to which by destiny alone man falls a victim
The explanation of he third sister representing death still holds because of the following reasoning.
Man struggles against being subject to death. So instead of death he imagines the Goddess of Love. So the third sister no longer seems to be death in his eyes, but the best, most lovable woman. (His imagination rebels against death so he projects onto her, and sees his desire rather than seeing what she rosily is.) The Goddess of Death is replaced by the Goddess of Love.
The same explanation answers how it is that the man chooses the third sister. for as we know, we do not choose Death. Again a wished-for reversal! is found. Choice stands in for Destiny end Necessity. Again wish fufilment is in operation.
The free choice is really no free choice. He must chose the third sister or evil will befall, There are just enough hints around the character of the third sister to suggest something uncanny about her, so that be audience and the protagonist might guess who she really is. Lear is a dying man who is not willing to let go of the love of women - hence he divides his inheritance and wishes to hear how much be is loved. The three sisters represent all the three inevitable relations man has with women - the mother who bears him, the companion of his bed and board and the destroyer.
The final entry of Lear with Cordelia carried in his arms is more properly seen as reversed if looked at in psychological terns. Rather than Lear canying the dead body of Cor~elia, she is the Death Goddess who is actually bearing him away: Eternal wisdom bids the old marl renounce love, choose death and "make fiends with the necessity of dying This is the reason the main character of Lear is aged and dying.
