Lear's Maternal Instincts

The need to be loved that Lear shows is not something that would be expected from a King in a male dominated patriarchal society. Respect and admiration, but not necessarily love. That would seem to be more of the mother's forte. They would be the ones who need their children to love and cherish them. But Lear seems to need both. At the beginning when he wants his daughters to shower him in songs of deepest love and cherishing he is only pleased with the grotesque showings of affection. While Cordelia gives a most respectable and honorable answer that would be good enough for any other king. She shows her loyalty and appreciation for him with out going overboard on describing her love. This does not please Lear, and I believe Kahn is very right in saying that this is because he is making up for the lack of a mother figure. The mother-like characteristics seem to be predominate. He does balance it out with the need to be respected and the need for his wish for his soldiers to be with him honored. As he realizes what Goneril and Regan truly think about him he begins to understand what is important. Not the overblown description of that love that they gave, but the simple and honest love and respect that Cordelia voiced.
Even though he does show these feminine emotions he has them closely intertwined with his masculine mindset. He wants to be loved, but can't weep or breakdown as Kahn says. It is only till the end when he is with Cordelia that realizes what an old fool he has been the entire time, and he allows himself to feel and exhibit these sad sentiments. You really see the transformation that Lear goes through, throughout the play. He begins with "childish" requests of "how much do you love me" and ends with realizing that there is much more to peoples relations then how they answer that question. It seems at first that as the play goes on that Lear is getting older and more senile, but I believe it shows him maturing. He understands fully now and is not so naive. He doesn't need the fool any longer to point out his folly, he is wise to the ways of the world, and realizes how truly foolish he had been before. His relation to the motherly characteristics are also much more straightforward, and not as muddled. He now recognizes true love and respect and shows emotion the way he deems fit.

“In war, you can only be killed once, but in politics, many times.”

The book and the movie both refuted the idea that "politics and sentiment do not mix". It could even be a premise for the entire novel actually. For events after events were shown where their lives were so deeply and emotionally changed and at times uprooted because of some terrible tragedy caused by politics. It is a nice ideal that politics and sentiment do not mix; at times it is probably best that they don't. However, it is foolish to think that they don't, no matter how much you wish they didn't. As long as there are humans involved, so there will also be emotions. Now if it is more of a question of whether or not they do well together, then that is a little more complicated. Sentiment was the driving force behind the Iranians who wanted a drastic change in their government. For not only did they realize politically it was not suitable, but also they saw the affects it had on their family, which were 98% if not all of the time negative. I believe Marji and her mother and grandmother realize this. They probably wish it was not so for the affects were again negative, but it put in Marji the fire that made her speak out against it and be true to herself and her people, as her grandmother always told her to be.

Her family also becomes a safe haven for her to help her cope with the government and all that happens around her. With out them, she would be much more broken then she already had become. I suppose that if there was a way to separate all emotion from any political dealings then that would be the best, but then what kind of politician would you be? How do you decide what to fight for and what is truly right and wrong? It would simply be the best way to not get hurt, which is what her father might have been trying to protect her from. Keeping her from getting emotionally involved, he might have thought, would keep her further from danger. Marji knew the cost of becoming involved with her countries politics, involving herself in the revolutions and speaking out against what she knew to be wrong and so did her mother and grandmother. But ignoring it all would be to turn her back on her family and her country that were very much apart of her.


p.s. quote is by Winston Churchill. I thought it fit since in the book it seemed that by fighting their government and living with that regime the people seemed to be constantly hurt, seeing more than one of their relatives and friends die and having to relive it all. Feeling the emotional pain can certainly be worse than any physical injury. An death to some could even seem like a relief, an escape from their invisible wounds.