SHAKESPEARE is my Homeboy

King Lear criticism

Cavell, Stanley. "The Avoidance of Love: A Reading of King Lear" from Disowning Knowledge in Seven Plays of Shakespeare

Cavell approaches Lear from the psychoanalytical theoretical approach. His approach moves beyond the "new critical" mode of merely investigating the text in Shakespeare in order to truly understand a character's meaning. Cavell reminds us to look beyond the text. The thesis for his reading of Lear is based on the following premise: that "sometimes people do not see what they mean, that usually they cannot say what they mean, that for various reasons they may not know what they mean, and that when they are forced to recognize this they feel they do not, and perhaps cannot mean anything, and they are struck dumb" (Cavell 42).

He uses this premise in order to explore many questions (what he describes as "traditional cruxes" (Cavell 43)) throughout the play. He enumerates several of these questions early in his essay: "How are we to understand Lear's motivation in his opening scene? How Cordelia's? Is Gloucester's blinding dramatically justified? What is the relationship between the Lear plot and the Gloucester subplot? What happens to the fool? Why does Edgar delay before revealing himself to his father? Why does Gloucester set out for Dover? Why does France not return with Cordelia? Why must Cordelia die?" (Cavell 43).
Throughout section one, Cavell explores what Paul Alpers has described as the "sight pattern" throughout King Lear. Cavell chooses to explore the "sight pattern" from a character perspective, rather than to discuss each example merely in terms of its symbolic or metaphoric value. Throughout the section, Cavell explores questions of "sight" (such as "Why does Edgar wait, after seeing his father, before revealing himself? and others listed above) from a motivational (or psychoanalytical) perspective.

Cavell often structures his argument throughout the chapter by presenting traditional interpretations, and explaining how they are insufficient. He then goes on to offer his own hypothesis to counter these previous readings. An example of this can be found in Cavell's interpretation of the opening scene (Cavell 57). He explains that Lear's motivation in Act I is driven by his desire to receive something which he does not have to return "in kind" (Cavell 61).

Ultimately, Cavell's reading of the sight pattern develops into an investigation of the theme of love in the play. Cavell argues that Lear is "ashamed of…the nature of his love for Cordelia" (Cavell 70). He also describes one of Cordelia's "sacrifices-of love to secrecy." (Cavell 70). Cavell explains how these themes, the "avoidance of love" and "avoidance of a particular kind of love"(Cavell 71-72), are derived from a reading of the "sight pattern" in the play, and better inform our understanding of Lear and Cordelia.

In conclusion, Cavell addresses the "equivocal" question of whether Lear is Christian play. He explores many possible reading of the Christian nature of the play, again through an understanding of character motivation rather than through symbol or metaphor. Ultimately, he demonstrates how the play is conversant with themes of Christianity and secularism simultaneously through the theme of sight. "What we need is not rebirth, or salvation, but the courage, or plain prudence, to see and to stop. To abdicate. But what do we need in order to do that? It would be salvation" (Cavell 81).