Bloom's Literary Themes - ymerleksi - home

136William Shakespeareor shelter, last, of reason itself, and, finally, to learn the preciousness of truelove only at the moment when it must be forever renounced—such is theawful and purifying ordeal through which Lear is compelled to pass.Shakspere “takes ingratitude,” Victor Hugo has said, “and he givesthis monster two heads, Goneril . . . and Regan.” The two terriblecreatures are, however, distinguishable. Goneril is the calm wielderof a pitiless force, the resolute initiator of cruelty. Regan is a smaller,shriller, fiercer, more eager piece of malice. The tyranny of the eldersister is a cold, persistent pressure, as little affected by tenderness orscruple as the action of some crushing hammer; Regan’s ferocity ismore unmeasured, and less abnormal or monstrous. Regan wouldavoid her father, and, while she confronts him alone, quails a little asshe hears the old man’s curse pronounced against her sister:“O the blest gods I so will you wish on meWhen the rash mood is on.”But Goneril knows that a helpless old man is only a helpless oldman, that words are merely words. When, after Lear’s terrible malediction,he rides away with his train, Goneril, who would bringthings to an issue, pursues her father, determined to see mattersout to the end. 6 To complete the horror they produce in us, thesemonsters are amorous. Their love is even more hideous than theirhate. The wars of“Dragons of the primeThat tare each other in their slime”formed a spectacle less prodigious than their mutual blandishmentsand caresses.“Regan. I know your lady does not love her husband;I am sure of that: and at her late being hereShe gave strange oeillades and most speaking looksTo noble Edmund.”To the last Goneril is true to her character. Regan is despatched out oflife by her sister; Goneril thrusts her own life aside, and boldly entersthe great darkness of the grave.