King Lear - The Fool: A Motivated Character

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(I, 5, 38) said the Fool to his master at the beginning of his misfortunes. He spoke as a prophet. The king lost everything including his wits, and has now himself become the fool. The Fool shows the sign of real sanity. The solution to the problem is set by the Fool; the problem of moral relativity, “Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile, filths savour but themselves,” (IV, 2, 38-9). “Lear’s tragedy is the investing of the king with motley, and the crowning of the Fool,” (Weisford 162-165).
William Hazlitt agrees that the Fool is of great importance to the play. He feels that the contrast would be to o painful, the shock to great, if the Fool was not part of the play. The Fool adds a sense of relief to the reader. He says that the imagination is glad to take refuge in the half-comic, half-serious comments of the Fool. Lear may well “beat at the gate which let his folly in,” (I, 4, 171). The Fool shows weaknesses in the old king’s conduct, and the consequences of ...

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