King Lear, both as head of state and paterfamilias, has multiple claims to power and obedience. His spectacle of dividing the kingdom among his daughters confuses their obligations to him as subjects with their filial obligations, duties that are not necessarily equivalent. Cordelia cannot play both roles at the same time; she prefers her role as a daughter to her duty to her father as a subject in his kingdom. The duty that Lear expects can only be fulfilled by speaking. Cordelia damns herself by not being able to say what is expected. Kent, an alternative model of loyalty in the play, incurs Lear's wrath by speaking too plainly. Kent's loyalty - which is distinguished from obedience - demonstrates the suspicious attitude the work has towards the word. It moves away from forms of affection that attempt to measure loyalty in terms of simple verbal compliance. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay A corollary of Kent's distrust of rhetoric seems to be his focus on physical presence, his reliance on optical evidence. This pattern of knowledge allows Kent to seem almost prescient in recognizing the deception of Lear's eldest daughters. It also contributes an important part of his service to the King; looking beyond the words, spoken as madness, by Lear, he can take care of his Lear's body, like a doctor. Kent's submission is dramatized, he "has done [learned]/improper service for a slave" (5.3.219-20), but this service is not servility. Kent's loyalty to Lear is not grounded in the hierarchical implications of the feudal state, but rather persists because Kent measures an equivalence between his body and that of his King. Kent's model of loyalty contrasts with that of Cordelia; similar in genre, but harder to explain because it isn't based on blood. The way Kent maintains his loyalty to the king is a clear paradox. It is represented as a pantomime, a subversive act of disobedience. Only by renouncing his name and identity, and therefore any pre-existing expectations or debts, can he fulfill his duty to Lear. Thus, when Kent, in the guise of Caius, must "raze" his identity. Kent takes special care to modify his language: "If however I borrow other accents also, / That may defuse my speech, my good intent / May bring" (1.4.1-3). One of the attributes he assigns to himself is that he can "convey a clear message in no uncertain terms" (1.4.30). This attention to modifying language is suggested in Edgar's relationship with his father, which parallels Kent's pantomime with Lear: as Tom O'Bedlam, he can offer comfort, but must be careful to cut his language from cloth coarser. The placement of truth in crude language reflects the enigma of meaning found in Lear's rants: "Oh, matter and impertinence mingled! / Reason in madness!" exclaims Edgar, hearing the former king speak (4.6.168-9). By giving up his claims to nobility, however, Kent emphasizes his masculinity. Femininity, throughout King Lear, is linked to betrayal, madness and inconstancy. Cordelia is the exception that proves the rule: upon hearing about her father's condition, she is moved, but "not in a rage" (4.3.15). Above all, it is reasonable. Kent's insistence on his virility, beyond all refinement, is a benchmark of his steadfastness. When Lear asks him to identify himself, he simply says, “A man, sir” (1.4.10) and “What/common men are fitted for, I am qualified” (1.4.30-1). The values ​​he ascribes to himself are the stoic opposite oflanguage and the effusive and effeminate action of the courtiers. He is an aggressive and soldier type. He, therefore, cannot help but attack the mad Oswald: "Having more man than wit in me, [I] drew [my sword]" (2.4.41). The "spirit", the mental lability, would allow him to tolerate insubordination, under the guise of diplomacy. It is important to note that Kent is not naturally impetuous, like Hotspur, but can also take on the role of courtier, with different ways of address. His loyalty is not to those courtly forms, however, but to the overall good of the State, that is, of the King. In the first scene of the play - Kent addresses the king, "Good my lord -" (1.1.120) but before he can begin, is interrupted by Lear's rash oath of resolution to reward the kingship to Albany and Cornwall. Kent, resuming his speech to the king, speaks in the same kind of language that Lear seems to want, the language of obligation and deference: "Royal Lear,/ whom I ever honored as my king,/ loved as my father, as my master followed him,/ As my great protector thought in my prayers -" (1.1.139-142). King, father, master, patron - note that each title contains an independent set of demands and obligations. At this point Lear interrupts: "The bow is bent and drawn, made from the shaft" (1.1.143). Lear urges Kent to get to the point; he expresses impatience with the same language, the same deferential way of addressing himself that he demanded from his daughters. This dismissive gesture is worth noting: it shows that Lear is not simply crazy about pretty language, but appreciates the power he has to demand it. Kent's words also foreshadow his later speech to Cornwall, which is a parody of courtly speech (2.2.97-99). Kent is Lear's subject - a position we will learn to regard with suspicion over the course of the play, where being a servant, being okay, is treacherous. It's a beautiful paradox: when obedience seems most complete, it is most unlikely. It is almost as if the breaking of political allegiance – like the breaking of Cordelia's filial obligations – is necessary to elicit a display of true loyalty. Therefore even Kent's honorific figures, however serious, will do nothing to mediate the content of the message, and are therefore extraneous. Kent notices this and grasps the language of the arrow and the target introduced by Lear. “Let [the arrowhead] fall, though the gallows invade/ The region of my heart” (1.1.144-5), he implores, and later, “Let me still remain/ The very void of thy eye” ( 1.1. 158-9). This language is appropriate. Kent, whose life is at stake on the king, finds this martial metaphor apt for the sacrifice to truth and to Lear he must undergo. It is almost as if, certain that he cannot appease Lear's anger, he must deflect it. Lear's utterance in (1.1.143) may also reflect that, just as an arrow, about to be shot, will inevitably be shot along its path with "horrible recklessness" (1.1.151), so it cannot reverse the Judgment on Cordelia has already been made. Kent gets this sense - so his pleas, which he must suspect will be futile. In his attempt at deflection, in his attempt at reversal, he dramatizes Cordelia's "untender" flaw: "Be Kent unkind, / When Lear is mad" (1.1.146). Kent means that Lear's senseless actions require harsh punishment, not masked by polite circumlocutions. But in the parallel that Kent draws between his position and Lear's behavior, Kent foresees what will be a clear outcome: Lear's madness. This madness, which has something hysterical, unmanly about it, requires Kent's "lack of manners" - which in its aural similarity to "lack of virility" clearly refers to emasculation - to counteract its effects. In theclose relationship between manners and virility, Kent must take the most severe measures in his treatment of Lear. Lear's "madness" will ultimately render him helpless; his recklessness is his eldest daughters' reason for seizing the state. Consequently, since Lear is the source of their authority, his dethronement deprives his servants of their proprietary power. Thus, Kent addresses Lear according to his new state, according to how his daughters and his unfaithful sons will see him: "What will you do, old man?" (1.1.146). He is an equal, a mortal, but in this admission there is the possibility of tenderness. Perhaps the most appropriate description of Kent's bond with Lear is the one that arises from this new status equivalence: the relationship between doctor and patient. This is a complicated relationship. Although the doctor serves the patient, the patient must obey the doctor. “Kill your doctor and grant compensation / To your disgusting disease” (1.1.164-5). But there is more to this metaphor than the shifting basis of power it implies. Kent also appears to acquire many of the methods and attributes of a doctor in treating Lear. Kent emphasizes physical fact as the root of truth, in much the same way that a doctor relies on empirical data to make diagnoses. “I declare that I am no less than I appear” (1.4.12). Likewise, the reason he gives for wanting to join Lear's retinue is visual: "Have you in your face what I would call master? Authority" (1.4.24-5, 27). Authority, therefore, is something intrinsic, something that cannot be erased by removing the title. Following this principle, Oswald's offense can be described: "His appearance I do not like" (2.2.82). There is something inherent in Oswald's appearance that is distasteful to Kent. It is in his mutability (2.2.64-77), that his ability changes, "with every storm and change of their masters, / Knowing nothing, like dogs, but following" (2.2.71-71). His "blind" obedience has no stable foundation, nor determinable characteristics. We also remember that Kent becomes a member of Lear's retinue. Lear's men are an extension of himself, as they are the only remnant of his authority that he has retained. However, as such, they are purely vestigial, and become a source of weakness, in the possibility of their removal. When Goneril and Regan begin to thin out his following, they are not only depriving the creature of comfort but also, in a truly malicious sense, tearing his own body apart. Reducing his following is a physical transgression, and limiting it literally throws him out in the cold. Kent identifies himself with this bodily extension of the king. When he goes to Lear in disguise, he claims to be "as poor as the king" (1.4.17). His status depends directly on that of the king, his authority derives directly from it. Thus, any act taken against Kent becomes one against Lear. In protesting at being put in the stocks by Cornwall, "I serve the king; 'Thou shalt show malice too bold/Against my master's grace and person,/Stocking his messenger" (2.2.120-4). This is a clear violation - for Lear it is almost unbelievable (2.4.14-21) is Regan's confirmation, as is Goneril's betrayal He has almost succeeded in convincing himself that Regan and Cornwall are indeed indisposed, when he sets his eyes on Kent in bonds. “This act persuades me/ That this remonition of the duke and her/ Is only practical” (2.4.107-9). Kent, exquisitely aware of the continuity of his self with that of the king, lends an exceptional amount of care of Lear's body comfort. When Kent initially identified himself as a doctor, he meant, metaphorically, a doctor of the health of the state. However, Lear's body is coterminous with the state, in the sense that the king is the embodiment of the state. Kent's concern for the king's body is also one....