The Theme of Language in Shakespeare's King Lear

Language is used in very different ways, and is a key factor in defining the plot of Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear. Among the Lear-Fool-Edgar-Kent group and the Goneril-Regan-Corwall group, there are several notable distinctions in the way the two groups discuss ideas. Also, the main premise of the play- Cordelia's inability to articulate her affection for her father has to do with language and the expression of ideas. Among the Lear-Fool-Edgar-Kent group, even the members within that group have drastically different ways of communicating through language. King Lear begins the play still sane, and planning on distributing his kingdom among his three daughters. First though, he wants to test them and does so by asking them in turn how much they love him. Goneril and Regan, his two older daughters both give their father satisfactory answers; however, Cordelia is unable to verbalize the love she feels for Lear. This infuriates him and he disowns her immediately. This example shows King Lear's use of language at the beginning of the play. Originally, he is very logical and methodical and uses this question to his daughters as a way of gauging whether they are fit to take over his kingdom.

Later however, King Lear loses touch with reality after disowning one of his daughters and being abandoned by the two others. There is a shift in his language from logical to mad, and it is definitely brought on by the family drama he is experiencing. The character of Fool is quite different from King Lear. He talks nonsensically most of the time, and sing ridiculous songs with the intention of providing the king with actual advice. The essay topic suggests that one group speaks with more "madness." Fool's existence as part of that group leads to the conclusion that the Lear-Fool-Edgar-Kent group speaks with more madness. Everything he says is difficult to extract meaning from and comprehend and his odd way of talking makes it hard to understand what advice he is attempting to give the King. It is ironic though that he is called the Fool, because after Lear goes mad Fool seems to have a lot more common sense and sanity than he did before.

The last two members of the group of men who were on King Lear's side in his dilemma are Edgar and Kent. They have several similarities to one another; namely that they both are disguising themselves as someone else during much of the play. Edgar carries out several impersonations, mostly to keep away from the army his father, Gloucester has sent searching for him. Kent is actually a nobleman fooling people into believing he is a peasant; he has only done so because he wants to continue serving the king. Their language is not particularly as distinctive as Lear and Fool's is but nevertheless it contributes to the classification of that group as the ones who speak with "madness."

Because Edgar is always impersonating someone else, the reader never really gets a good sense of his character and his language does nothing to help this. His language is very obscure but at the beginning of Act 4 it becomes easier to understand why he is the way he is. In the opening scene of Act 4, Edgar is sitting on the heath, talking to himself when his father is blindly led in. In this scene, through Edgar's language the reader understands the subtle parallel between him and Lear. Both have immense regret about the situation they are experiencing. In Lear's case he betrayed a family member and in Edgar's case he was betrayed by his half-brother and then his father.

When it comes to Kent, he makes an impression on the reader with his language by how candid and outspoken he is; often at inopportune moments. Another important function of language in the play has to do with the storyline of King Lear's loss of dignity after his daughter's abandon him and how he begins to go insane. Lear's descent into insanity becomes evident in the language of the other characters. For example, the language that would traditionally convey respect to a ruler is strange as early as the first scene of the play. Lear's decline is foreshadowed though several comments of the other characters; such as Kent's avoidance of the term "king" near the end of the first scene. He refers to Lear as "Royal Lear" or "my liege" and only begins calling him king again at the end of the scene.

The Goneril-Regan-Cornwall group is the group which speaks more logically. To begin with, Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall are ruthless and spiteful but intelligent nonetheless. They are all bold and aggressive and will be brutal in getting what they want. All three characters use language to their advantage to fulfill their greedy ambitions. Their logical nature, along with the fact that they say what they actually mean much more so than a character like the Fool does makes them much more understandable The two groups actually have a similarity between their language in that they are much harder to understand than characters in other Shakespearean works. The language is dense, and sometimes for the characters who speak with greater "madness" as the essay topic suggests, the meaning of what they are trying to convey gets lost in translation. For example, the reader eventually understands that Fool is wise, but he still speaks in a confusing way making it hard to realize he is saying anything important. The situation that has been set up in the play pinning Lear, Fool, Edgar, and Kent as the mad ones, and the other group of Goneril, Regan, and Cornwall as the logical ones leads to the family's eventual downfall. Ultimately, the kinds of language used between the two groups creates such confusion and causes such miscommunication that nearly every character ends up dying.