The Bard Blender

Last Friday, I watched King Lear for the first time. (For those who want to keep track, that makes 26 plays that I have either seen or read.)  In Lear, Edgar, who is forced to flee home to save his life, decides to disguise himself as Tom of Bedlam.  I was watching the BBC's Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare, in which Edgar's Tom looks like he stumbled off the set of a passion play, but that's beside the point.  What is the point is that Edgar tells us before hand that this is what he's going to do but, unlike for instance Rosalind in As You Like It , he does not break his disguise to tell us that he is in disguise.  And since we only have the character's own voices to say tell us what they think and feel and who they are, I began to wonder what this means for Edgar's sanity.  After he throws off the persona of Tom, he once again acknowledges his true idenity, but while he is in the guise of Tom he goes by nothing else.  If we as an audience must rely upon his word for validation of his character, we will not receive it. 

Does this mean that Edgar is crazy? 

For insight into this question, we look to the persona itself.  He puts it on when he has been expelled not only from his social state but from his home.  His half-bother has turned their father against him and thus he flees.  It is only when Edgar has returned to his rightful place can he remove his persona  -- now here I must clarify, a moment ago I mentioned his social status, but that is not the place I am referring to here.  Here I mean his familial role.  It is only when he is reunited with his father, though his father does not recognize him due to blindness, that he is no longer *acting* crazy.  He is able to fulfill his familial role and that restores his persona, if not his sanity.  It is only once he has thrown off this persona that he can reclaim his social role as well. 

This I believe contrasts nicely with Lear himself: Lear is said (thought) to be crazy, and depending on the staging can be seen as such.  Lear is crazy because he too is unable to play out his familial role.  He has rejected one of his daughters and been rejected by the others.  Only once Cordelia returns to take care of him can Lear's madness be put aside and it is then that he can speak to his daughter and reconcile with Kent. 

Whether Edger, or Lear, is actually crazy is up to each production to decide but this relationship between performed madness and true madness (for, to define true madness, what is't but to be mad) is an interesting tension worth exploring which I have only touched on here by looking at its relationship to familial roles.  Taken out to its farthest conclusion one could say that Lear presents a world where family order and by extension social order is sanity and breaking from that by choice or otherwise causes madness even if it is only temporary.

This is definitely a subject worth exploring and I look forward to working through it more at a later date.