Lear by Edward Bond
**Concept Overview of "Lear" by Edward Bond**
"Lear" is a thought-provoking and intense play by Edward Bond that explores the themes of power, societal violence, and human suffering through the narrative of its titular character, Lear. The play unfolds in four distinct phases, starting with Lear as a king who attempts to secure his realm but ultimately faces betrayal from his daughters, Bodice and Fontanelle. Following a brutal civil war, Lear is overthrown and left as an outcast, leading him into a wilderness where he encounters the Gravedigger's Boy, who represents a glimmer of compassion amidst chaos.
As Lear navigates this new existence, he grapples with his past mistakes and the consequences of his actions on his family and society. The play further delves into themes of madness, power struggle, and the cyclical nature of violence as Lear returns to face trial at the hands of his daughters, now in control. The narrative culminates in a tragic examination of authority, as Lear's attempts to dismantle societal constructs ultimately lead to his demise.
Bond's work draws parallels with Shakespeare's "King Lear," but it reinterprets the myth to reflect contemporary concerns, emphasizing political allegory and psychological depth. The blend of shocking violence and dark humor in the play serves to engage the audience critically, challenging them to reflect on the nature of power and the human condition.
Lear by Edward Bond
First published: 1972
First produced: 1971, at the Royal Court Theatre, London
Type of plot: Allegory; psychological
Time of work: Unspecified
Locale: England
Principal Characters:
Lear , the king of EnglandBodice , andFontanelle , his daughtersDuke of North , andDuke of Cornwall , his enemiesThe Gravedigger’s Boy , a farmer who befriends himCordelia , the wife of the Gravedigger’s BoyJohn , a carpenter in love with Cordelia
The Play
Lear is a powerful, complex, and violent study of how men and women are crushed by the society they have created. The play focuses on Lear, who, to compensate for the errors of his life, attempts to change his society. Lear can be divided into four distinct phases: Lear as king; Lear at the house of the Gravedigger’s Boy; Lear in his former kingdom, now run by his daughters; and finally, Lear as outcast.
The first phase shows King Lear building a wall to prevent an attack by armies led by the Dukes of North and Cornwall. During an inspection of the wall, Lear uses the accidental death of a laborer to speed up the work. He falsely accuses another laborer of causing the accident and passes a death sentence on him. Bodice and Fontanelle, Lear’s two daughters who accompany him, publicly denounce their father’s actions and choose this moment to inform him of their intended marriages to the dukes. Such an action establishes Lear’s daughters as enemies of the state. Provoked, and partly in order to prove his power, an angry Lear shoots the innocent worker.
Warrington, Lear’s chief administrator, receives letters from Bodice and Fontanelle; each urges him to betray both the king and the other sister. In separate comic asides, Bodice and Fontanelle tell of their dissatisfaction with married life and reveal ambitions to destroy each other as well as their husbands, marry Warrington, and run the country through him.
Civil war follows, and although Lear’s two daughters fail to destroy each other or their husbands, the army succeeds in overthrowing the king. Warrington survives the war but, with his knowledge of each sister’s counterplot, needs to be silenced. Fontanelle has his tongue removed; the two women then watch while he is tortured. As a result of their military takeover, Lear is forced out of his kingdom and deserted. The play, having shown the destruction of Lear’s power, now presents an alternative way of life.
The second phase of the play opens in the wilderness, where Lear is befriended by the Gravedigger’s Boy. Together, they return to the man’s farm. Lear is content here and, under the cloak of anonymity, is able to rest. As he sleeps, the Gravedigger’s Boy, so named because he used to dig graves with his father, argues with his wife, Cordelia, over his rescue of Lear. The farmer is compassionate and has also taken pity on a “wild man” from the wars, the silenced Warrington, who roams the woods. The farmer leaves bread and water out for him. Cordelia is frightened of these “filthy old men” and cannot understand her husband’s priorities. While they all sleep, Warrington appears. His attempt to stab Lear fails, and he must hide in the well.
After a long rest, Lear awakes to see the arrival of a local carpenter, in love with Cordelia; he brings a cradle for the child Cordelia is expecting. The farmer, having been told by his wife that the water from the well is unclean, discovers that Warrington has fallen in and broken his neck. The farmer attempts to bring the body to the surface, but as he does so, soldiers arrive to arrest Lear. In a horrific climax to the first act, the soldiers murder the farmer and rape Cordelia. The carpenter, John, who has been fetching tools to mend a broken door, returns and kills the soldiers.
The third phase of Lear begins with Lear returning to his former kingdom, where he stands trial before his daughters. His grasp of the world has deteriorated so much that the judge declares him insane and sentences him to imprisonment. Bodice and Fontanelle then turn their attention to an uprising against the state, led by Cordelia.
In prison, Lear is visited by the ghost of the Gravedigger’s Boy. Together Lear and the ghost share their sufferings, along with the ghosts of Lear’s daughters as they were when young. This moment in the play is important because it allows Lear to see and understand the forces that have made his children the way they are. Cordelia, her new husband John the carpenter, and the army continue in their fight against Bodice and Fontanelle, whose power is dwindling. In the final throes of their rule, the two sisters both arrest their husbands, the dukes, who have tried to escape, and sign Lear’s death warrant.
Despite the sisters’ efforts to maintain control, the state disintegrates. Fontanelle is caught by Cordelia’s soldiers and imprisoned with a number of men, including her father, who fails to recognize her. The past still haunts the present as the decomposing ghost of the Gravedigger’s Boy appears, forgives Lear for endangering his home, and embraces him as a father. In the same way that Lear used his authority in the first scene by killing the worker, Cordelia’s husband now orders Fontanelle shot, and Lear watches her autopsy. Bodice is also arrested, and is bayoneted to death by soldiers. The prison doctor, wishing to gain advancement with the new administration, makes Lear “politically ineffective” by removing his eyes.
The final act returns to the Gravedigger Boy’s farm, now occupied by Thomas, his pregnant wife Susan, and John. In their home they shelter Lear and, despite Susan’s reluctance, a few prisoners from the war. Lear speaks in public, and large groups of people come to listen. Cordelia, who has ordered the reconstruction of the wall, sees his speeches as dangerous to state security and requests that these activities cease. Lear, recognizing his earlier mistake in thinking that the wall would bring peace, informs her that it is of no value in the creation of a society. Cordelia refuses to listen and tells Lear that he must stand trial. The ghost of the Gravedigger’s Boy, whose vision of creating a new world within the old has failed, dies.
The final scene shows Lear climbing the wall, attempting to pull it down. A farmer’s son whom he has met earlier, now a junior officer in the army, shoots Lear, who dies at the wall.
Dramatic Devices
Lear uses as its central figure the character of King Lear, who, according to Raphael Holinshed, “lived about the year 3100 after the creation.” William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear (pr. c. 1605-1606), deals with an old man who, through his own rash deed and misjudgment of his daughters, is subjected to terrible suffering. Lear is not a rewriting of Shakespeare’s play but an examination of certain aspects of a myth in the light of Edward Bond’s own experience of the world. There are, however, numerous similarities with Shakespeare’s play that illuminate Bond’s version.
The Gravedigger’s Boy is Bond’s fool, able to indicate Lear’s mistakes but not to solve them. Bodice and Fontanelle, like Goneril and Regan, are created and given license to act by their father but turn this power against him. Although in Lear Cordelia is not the king’s daughter, Bond does make a connection between the two characters. Cordelia inherits Lear’s position as head of state and carries out her duties with a similar self-righteousness. Bond dramatically explores this reinvention of the political wheel, showing that the same mistakes are inevitable. The impact Shakespeare’s play makes on a theater audience is such that a reinterpretation of the legend, such as Bond is attempting, can create new tensions and challenge an audience into thinking afresh about the issues contained in the play.
Lear, despite shocking scenes which arrest an audience’s attention, also provides splendid moments of comic relief. Much of this humor arises from a contrast between the grotesque and the ludicrous: Bodice knits while Warrington is tortured, and the doctor calms Lear, after the removal of his eyes, with pleasant, soothing words. Moments such as these provide one of the keys to Bond’s success as a writer. He is able to capture his total experience of the world and convert it into theatrical metaphors that operate on many different levels simultaneously. For Bond, these metaphors must always be political.
Critical Context
Although Edward Bond had written other plays, The Pope’s Wedding (pr. 1962, pb. 1971) was the first to receive a professional production at the Royal Court Theatre, London, in 1962. Other major plays that followed were Saved (pr. 1965, pb. 1966) and Early Morning (pr., pb. 1968), which were also produced at the Royal Court Theatre. Lear and The Sea (pr., pb. 1973) completed what Bond has described as his first cycle of plays.
In them, Bond poses questions about the workings of society and reveals the violence inherent in it; for example, Bond writes about the murder of an old hermit in The Pope’s Wedding, the stoning of a baby to death in Saved, cannibalism in Early Morning, and mass infanticide in Narrow Road to the Deep North (pr., pb. 1968). He has made it clear that “people who do not want writers to write about violence want to stop them writing about us and our time.”
The second stage of Bond’s work includes Bingo: Scenes of Money and Death (pr. 1973, pb. 1974), The Fool (pr. 1975, pb. 1976), and The Woman (pr. 1978, pb. 1979). In these plays Bond examines society in three stages of cultural development. After The Woman, Bond went on to write a series of plays beginning with The Bundle: Or, New Narrow Road to the Deep North (pr., pb. 1978). These he calls“’answer plays,’ in which I would like to say: I have stated the problems as clearly as I can—now let’s try and look at what answers are applicable.” In the 1980’s, Bond turned to an exploration of nuclear holocaust (in The War Plays: A Trilogy, pb. 1985), which he maintains “is for our time the only subject—directly or by reflection—for art.”
Sources for Further Study
Hay, Malcolm, and Philip Roberts. “Lear.” In Edward Bond: A Companion to the Plays. London: TQ, 1978.
Hirst, David L. Edward Bond. New York: Grove Press, 1986.
Lappin, Lou. “Lear and the Reconstruction of Tragedy.” In The Art and Politics of Edward Bond. New York: P. Lang, 1987.
Mangan, Michael. Edward Bond. London: British Council, 1998.
Oppel, Horst, and Sandra Christenson. Edward Bond’s “Lear” and Shakespeare’s “King Lear.” Wiesbaden, Germany: Steiner, 1974.
Scharine, Richard. “Lear: ’Suffer the Little Children.’” In The Plays of Edward Bond. Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1976.
Smith, Leslie. “Edward Bond’s Lear.” Comparative Drama 13 (1979): 65-85.
Spencer, Jenny S. Dramatic Strategies in the Plays of Edward Bond. Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1996.