Chapter Synopsis of King Lear - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

Edgar delivers a soliloquy, alone on stage, whilst hidden in a tree he overheard that he was a wanted man and there is nowhere safe left in the kingdom. As a result he decides to disguise himself as a mad beggar, as the famous "poor Tom" of Bedlam, and covers himself in dirt and grime. He entirely rejects his former self: "Edgar I nothing am". Like Kent before him and Lear soon afterwards he has transformed himself in order to escape the chaos of the new order.

Act II, Scene IV

Lear and the Fool find Kent in the stocks and Lear seems determined to ignore the fact that it was his daughter and son-in-law who imprisoned his servant. At this point Lear draws attention to the fact he believes he has brought up his daughters as a mother and a father:

O! how this mother swells up towards my heart;

Hysterica passio! Down, thou climbing sorrow!

Thy element’s below. Where is this daughter?

"Mother" and "Hysterica passio" were names given to hysteria that would spread from the pit of the stomach affecting different parts of the body as it swelled up. He sees his daughters as part of himself and as they turn against him part of himself is rebelling too.

Lear leaves to search for Regan but is told that she and Cornwall are too tired to meet him. He returns hurt and angry and sends Gloucester to get them. When Regan arrives he explains to her how Goneril has behaved, cursing her for turning him out and reducing his retinue. Regan upbraids her father explaining that she does not believe her sister would have acted so harshly without reason.

Goneril arrives whilst Lear is questioning who really put Kent in the stocks. Cornwall admits that it was him and shows no repentance. Regan asks Lear to dismiss half his men and return to Goneril then come and stay with her at the end of the month with his fifty men. At this point it seems that Lear is beginning to crack: he pleads with them "do not make me mad". The sisters seem intent on doing just this. Regan suggests he stays with her with just 25 men, he chooses Goneril and 50 men over this until she asserts that he needs no more than 10 or 5 men as she has enough servants to wait on the both of them.

The theme of nothingness is again raised here. He warns his daughter to "reason not the need" because "our basest beggars / Are in the poorest things superfluous." He believes his daughters have reduced him to "a poor old man, / As full of grief as age; wretched in both!" and there is evidence that at this point he is falling apart. He is confused and makes contradictory claims and requests: he swears revenge on his daughters yet he does not know how to implement this but he maintains a façade of strength:

"I have full cause of weeping, but this heart

Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws

Or ere I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad."

It is obvious how hurt and betrayed he feels and his ominous prediction highlights the fact that this is the last time we are to see him as an even semi-lucid character.

Goneril and Regan, who seem to feel a twinge of guilt over their father’s departure, convince themselves and others that if he did not have such a big retinue they would be happy to receive him. Nonetheless they are obviously not too concerned as Goneril requests that Gloucester does not try and persuade him to stay and Regan orders the doors to be locked as a storm is looming.

Act III, Scene I