Fool in "King Lear" Is One of Term Paper

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Fool in "King Lear" is one of the complex characters that is allowed, under a veil of foolishness, to say anything in front of the King, because he is considered to be partially irresponsible and, as such, cannot be punished for the things he says. The result is a confusing set of remarks, but many of these have underlying significance and effect on the play itself. The fact that he is able to speak his mind freely allows the author to sometimes put in his own remarks and observations as to the way the action of the play is constructed, without actually being one of the characters of the plays.

The Fool starts his speeches in Act I, Scene 4, where one can identify two types of speeches. In one type, he is making comments on the actions of the King, notably on the way he banished his daughter. However, the way he expresses this does not seem necessarily to reflect the entire reality of things. A line such as "Why, this fellow hath banish'd two on's daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will" is not a real one: the King has banished one of his daughters and, apparently, did a blessing to the other two. The nonsense part of The Fool's speeches seems to be usually built upon these lines in which he reverses the actual reality.

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In my opinion, most of his speeches and interventions in the dialogue bear some sort of meaning, despite some of these appearing to be out of place or with no relation to what is going on. The fact that occasionally the Fool speaks in rhymes usually puts the reader in guard that this might be something that does not make sense, such as the lines in Act III, Scene 6 "Her boat hath a leak, And she must not speak Why she dares not come over to thee." While the actual conclusion is preceded by several useless lines, the conclusion is, in fact, that the character is afraid to come next to Edgar. This is noticeable across some of the other interventions that the Fool says: he usually speaks several lines that have no actual impact on the action before coming out with the one that has meaning for the course of the action.

On the other hand, the previously mentioned scene also contains interesting general reflections on life. Under the mask of foolishness, the Fool is able to point out that "Have more than thou showest, Speak….....

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