It is strange to think that true madness can ever be fully understood. Shakespeare's masterful depiction of the path to madness, however, is one of the strongest elements of King Lear. The early and middle stages of Lear's deterioration (occurring in Acts I to III) form a highly rational pattern of irrationality: Lear's condition degenerates only when he is injured or when some piece of the bedrock on which his old man rested stable world is shaken. . His crazy behavior makes a lot of sense. Despite his age and fragility, Lear is not a weak character; it is difficult to imagine how another character could have better withstood such mental and emotional burdens under which the king suffers. The worsening of Lear's madness is understandable only if interpreted with a proper appreciation of the intense forces acting on him and the gradual disappearance of everything he finds recognizable in his former world. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay As Lear sets off from his palace to the homes of his daughters, he is still sane, even as he begins to regret having disowned Cordelia, the first sign of mental stress and the first step towards his eventual madness. Lear's Fool goads him about the rash decision, and the king blurts out, "Oh! Let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven; / Keep me calm; I would not be mad!" (Iv46-47) It is a harbinger of thoughts to come. Lear's impending madness is established in parallel with the growing storm; both threaten to break at any moment. But Lear is strong: he does not suddenly give in to madness; instead he resists as long as possible, only gradually sliding into madness. And Lear is strong, it is important to note the severity of the stressors acting on him; ignoring them can lead to a misinterpretation of his character as a weak, senile old man instead of a capable leader simply mistreated by the people he trusted. He may have been foolish to trust them, but he wasn't crazy. Above all, Lear's madness is understandable. It is rooted in dismay. Every time a loved one hurts him, Lear grows weaker, as does his increasingly tenuous grip on reality. One by one, the pillars that had elevated him above the rest of Britain for eighty years crumble, leaving him finally at the bottom of the pile, in frightening, alien territory. When Lear discovers Kent in chains at the beginning of Act II, Scene iv, he simply cannot understand what had happened that his daughter would treat her messenger with such insolence. First, Lear laughs, surely it must be a joke! But Kent informs him that Regan and Cornwall are personally behind the humiliation. Lear cannot believe it. Their exchange is almost comical (especially in contrast to the lines that follow): "No." "YES." "No, I say." "I say yes." "No, no; they wouldn't." "Yes, they did." "By Jove, I swear, no." "By Juno, I swear, yes." Lear refuses to see the truth; desperately searches for some other explanation for what is perfectly obvious. Whatever comedy the dialogue produces is then immediately negated by Lear's intense lament: They dared not do it; it's worse than indignation. Decide for me, with all modest haste, how you might deserve, or would be forced upon you, this usage, by coming to us. [...]Oh! how this mother swells towards my heart;Hysterica passio! down, you who climb the pain! Your element is below. (II.iv.21-57)A part of Lear's world that was once concrete is suddenly loose, fluid, not at all reliable. He is wounded not only as a king by a subordinate, but alsoas a father to a daughter, which brings with it special pains. Furthermore, Regan's salvo aggravates the wounds inflicted by Goneril, so Lear suffers doubly. Note the phrase "down, you who climb the pain!" The damage to Lear's heart is psychosomatically ascending to his brain. Resists its rise; when he finally overcomes it, when the last vestige of Lear's old world dies, he is subject to the tremendous disturbance usually felt only by creatures in the midst of great earthquakes, when they discover that the one fundamental constant of life in their case, the solidity of the earth beneath their feet? It is nothing more than an illusion, a fiction, and always has been. Lear has no earthquakes; he has a storm which, with its gusts and torrents, reflects quite faithfully the chaos of his mind. Lear's brain is at this point overwhelmed by a double pain: he has lost his daughters and also his political ability. Lear is not so much losing his head as having it torn away. Whatever the method, it's slipping away, and doing so in time as the storm outside worsens. Thunder is heard just after Lear says that he "[is] full of sorrow as age; wretched in both!" (II.iv.273) and moans: "O fool! I will go mad!" (II.iv.286) Lear refuses to deign to remain without his knights in one of his daughters' houses; instead he chooses to retreat into the woods. Lear's first entrance on the stage occurs in his formal and rigid palace; then he appears in the minor homes of his daughters; It is now in the wild. As Lear moves to less and less formal places, his mind also deteriorates. Act III reveals the political disorder that has engulfed Britain. In the absence of the king's central authority, Lear's successors create chaos with their machinations against him and each other. Disorder exists in three spheres: mental, inside Lear's head; political, since the bad guys plot for power and mutual ruin; and physical, in the literal storm. All this is in contrast to Lear's previous orderly rule. Lear's madness intensifies. In Act III, Scene ii, he speaks to the time; his rants aren't entirely mad, though, because they contain an element of fun: a (once) powerful king having fun, shouting at the elements to do no more than their worst. However, although Lear maintains control of his faculties, there is still something unsettling in his invective. It is the somewhat unconscious awareness that the real madness looms, that this type of behavior will not be forgivable for long. Lear feels it too: when the mind is free, the body is delicate; the storm in my mind takes away from my senses every other feeling except what beats there. Filial ingratitude! [...] To exclude me! Deposit; I will resist. On a night like this! O Regan, Goneril! Your kind old father, whose frank heart gave all, O! thus lies the madness; let me avoid it; Enough of that. (III.iv.11-22) Lear alternates frighteningly between being extraordinarily aware of his mental decay (he interrupts his train of thought, recognizing that he is rambling) and impulsively calling for rain (the sudden "Pour") . Lear's descent into madness is made even more genuine by the appearance of Edgar, disguised as poor Tom; feigns madness with nonsensical words, such as "O! do de, do de, do de" (III.iv.56-57) and "suum, mun ha no nonny" (III.iv.97) which just seems silly in contrast. The ridiculous stammering makes Lear's true madness even more threatening. Edgar's mad speech makes perfect sense to Lear, though, and while the former king may lose some rationality, he gains some humanity when he tears off some of his clothes in solidarity with his new naked companion . Lear thinks aloud, “Is man nothing but this?..