The Fool In King Lear Essay

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In the Shakespeare’s tragic play, King Lear, specifically in Act III, the essence of the fool emphasizes his overall impact on Lear; through his caution and humor, the fool strives to protect Lear. To begin, the fool’s purpose in relation to Lear is to provide comical puns and jokes, however such comedy is implanted in order to lighten the mood of Lear’s dark thoughts and actions. Lear is going crazy due his daughters ganging up against him and the corruption now occurring in his kingdom, yet the fool provides comic relief to diminish the depressive tone. The fool is almost like the chorus of a play, he forms commentary to describe to the audience about Lear’s situation. Additionally, he sings in Scene VI in order to take away from Lear refusing to go to his daughters’ home due to the fact he doesn’t want to aplogize; instead of apologizing to Goneril and Reagan he would rather stand out in the vicious storm. …show more content…

The fool senses Lear’s madness since he presumes that no sane individual would venture into such a cold storm and then proceed to strip naked. Since the fool actually is Lear’s closest advisor and practically his guardian, he urges Lear to go in the hut when he exclaims, “holy water in a dry house is better than this rainwater out o' door. Good nuncle, in, and ask thy daughters blessing” (Lear 3.2.10-12). He understands that the only way to keep Lear from going even more psychotic is to get him dry and in a place where he can talk with him about the current situation as well as his current emotions towards his kingdom crumbling at the

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