Machiavelli wrote that for leaders, “it is much safer to be feared than to be loved when one of the two must be lacking” ((Machiavelli et al. The Prince, 131). In relation to the character of Lear in King Lear, Lear is Machiavellian when he has power and is not Machiavellian when he loses it. Lear is not Machiavellian because he does not follow Machiavelli’s rules for being a good ruler. Lear’s hamartia, his pride and arrogance, makes it so that Lear values the exaggerated love of his three daughters over being feared by them. This ‘fatal flaw’ results in Lear’s fall from power and when Lear lacks power he can no longer carry out the immoral acts he wishes. In William Shakespeare’s King Lear, morality and power correlate such that when Lear’s power decreases due to prioritizing the love of his daughters over their fear as a result of his hamartia, his morality increases due to a change in his ability to fulfill his immoral statements with action. This will be proven through looking at Lear’s retention of power in Act One, Scene One where Lear wants to be feared by his servants, through Lear’s anagnorisis in Act Four, Scenes Three and Six where Lear realizes that his pride and arrogance makes him vulnerable to flattery and manipulation, and through Act Five, Scene Three where Lear has no power left and continues to have immoral thoughts and wishes which cannot be carried out.
In Act One of the play Lear has a lot of power to not only say immoral things, but to follow through if he so wishes. This is demonstrated when Lear threatens to kill Kent for contradicting him, “The bow is bent and drawn, make from the shaft” (1.1.142). This quotation reveals that Lear has the power and ability to kill, even his most loyal servant, should he wish. A keyword used is “bent”, as it signifies that Lear is ready to kill him at any moment, thus implying that all of his servants are disposable and only he matters. “The bow is bent” is a metaphor which compares Lear’s anger for being disrespected and contradicted to that of a “bow”. The idea of a “bow” being “bent and drawn” means that Lear is willing to kill Kent as he has the tools prepared. To kill his servant, he must have the will and the ability; and this metaphor demonstrates that his anger is such that he will act on it. This quote serves to interrupt Kent in the middle of his pleading to Lear to not cast Cordelia away. The use of interruption, via the use of a dash on the preceding line, serves to demonstrate Lear’s power as he will have the final word on the subject. Through interrupting Kent to threaten to kill him, Lear asserts his power by carrying out his immorality in actions. The interruption is an assertion of power in addition to the threat that silences Kent making it so that the immoral action does not need to be carried out; however, it is important to note that Lear could carry it out. This links to Machiavelli’s theory that to keep power it is more important for a king to be “feared than to be loved” because here, Lear is following Machiavelli’s advice and is trying to be feared by his servants. Nilay Ayyildiz, professor and academic researcher in the areas of English Language and Literature argues in her essay on Machiavellian antagonists in four of Shakespeare’s plays that, “failure as a ruler in Machiavellian sense just like King Lear and Hamlet’s father who cannot predict and take preventive precautions against possible threats around them.” (Ayyildiz, “An Evaluation of the Evil Character’s in Shakespeare’s Four Principle Tragedies in terms of Machiavellian Principles”, 1046). This means that while Lear’s threat is in line with Machiavellian principles, Ayylidiz argues that in other areas of his life Lear’s lack of Machiavellianism, due to his pride and arrogance, leads to his downfall. In the alternative, this quote could be regarded as Lear threatening but not following through on his immoral wish. This relates to the correlation of Lear’s power and morality because as a king Lear would have absolute power during the reigns of the Tudor’s.
In Act Four Lear has a moment of anagnorisis in which he realizes that his pride and arrogance made him vulnerable, as he wanted his daughters to love him rather than fear him. This is demonstrated at two points in Act Four where Kent tells the Gentleman that Lear, “gave her dear rights / To his dog-hearted daughters” (4.3.44-45) and where Lear acknowledges that, “They flattered / Me like a dog” (4.6.96-97). Together, these quotes demonstrate that Lear has no power because he has given it to Goneril and Regan by splitting the kingdom. In the second quote, Lear acknowledges that he split his kingdom between his daughters’ because they ‘flattered’ him by telling Lear what he wanted to hear. In this moment, Lear realizes that because he valued the love of his daughters’, because of his hamartia, i.e., his arrogance and pride, he was vulnerable and a weak ruler. The repetition of “dog” in both quotes is an insult to both Lear and his daughters. Calling or referring to someone as a “dog” is a universal insult. To his daughters, the insult is that they are cruel and inhumane; to refer to himself as a “dog” Lear is implying that his daughters patronized him with flattery, similar to how one would flatter a dog with treats or words. The quote makes use of a simile in which Lear compares himself to a dog because it took minimal convincing to get Lear to give up his kingdom once Goneril and Regan exaggerated and blatantly lied about how much they love their father. The reiteration that Lear split his kingdom is relevant to the time period as following Queen Elizabeth I’s death in 1603, James VI united the Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland under one head of power; no king in his right mind would ever split the united kingdom’s up as it would weaken the crown’s power. Shakespeare prioritizes and recaptures the information that was revealed at the beginning of the play. In the first quote, Kent re-tells Act One, Scene One to the Gentleman and in the second quote, Lear re-tells Goneril and Regan’s professions of love to Gloucester. With Lear’s quote, this is his anagnorisis moment because he is recognizing his ‘fatal flaw’ of pride and arrogance. Mahshid Mirmasoomi, PhD applicant at the University of Tehran specializing in English argues, “It is such to flattery that comes under censure by Shakespeare who regards it as a weak point for a king. Who is supposed to rule over a country” (Mirmasoomi, “Hamartia and catharsis in Shakespeare's King Lear and Bahram Beyzaie's Death of Yazdgerd,” 18). This is relevant to Machiavelli’s theory that a king should be feared rather than loved because Mirmasoomi notes that Shakespeare, through his portrayal of King Lear, also believed that for a king to want to be flattered results in a weak rulership. In the alternative, the reference of Lear being compared to a dog could serve to demonstrate that Goneril and Regan treated him as less than human. In relation to the correlation between morality and power, these quotes indicate that Lear lost his power as a result of his arrogance and pride, and that these moments serve as his anagnorisis and insulting his daughters demonstrates his immorality.
In Act Five, Scene Three Lear is powerless but continues to have immoral thoughts which he cannot fulfill. Following Cordelia’s death Lear is upset, “Howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones!” (5.3.256) and reminisces about the old days when he was king and had power saying, “I have seen the day with my good biting falchion / I would have made them skip.” (5.3.275-276). Here, the reference to “howl” signifies that Lear is very upset and combined with the second quote, Lear longs for the day when he had power because as king, he would have tortured the person who killed Cordelia. It demonstrates that he no longer has the power within himself to carry out the torture, nor the power to force someone else to do it for him. It also shows how he still has immoral wishes, but because he lacks the power, they are only words. The word “would” in the second quote signifies that if he had the power or the ability, he would have revenged Cordelia’s murder. The use of the conditional verb tense, “would” signifies that Lear’s action is contingent on him having the physical ability or the power to make someone carry out the torture. Since Lear is grieving for his daughter, the repetition of “howl” is onomatopoeia as his emotions mirror the sounds of the wind in the storm. This makes use of prophetic fallacy as Lear’s grief and emotions match the raging storm and weather. Here, Lear is upset and is storming inside and because of this, he brings up that if he had power like when he was king before his downfall, he would have exacted revenge on Cordelia’s murderers by torturing them with his “falchion”. Through the stage direction “[Enter Lear, with Cordelia dead in his arms]” (5.3.256) Lear’s anagnorisis is evident because he realizes that he gave all of his power away and the consequence of this is that his only loyal daughter is dead. This stage direction highlights Lear’s realization of his mistake. In his Honours Theses at the Eastern Kentucky University where he compares psychology and Shakespeare, Justice Cundiff argues that Lear’s Machiavellian characteristics increase towards the end of the play as, “the consequence of being deceived by those in whom [he] had placed [his] trust and reverence” (Cardiff, “Shakespeare and Psychology: Emotional Intelligence and Machiavellianism in King Lear and Othello”, 32). As a result of being manipulated by his daughters, Lear recognizes his mistake in dividing England, and realizes that flattery made him a weak ruler as it led to him being manipulated by his daughters for power. At the end of the play King Lear has no heir; like Henry VIII who was looking to have a son and as such he married six different women, now Lear has no one left. Although now, Lear has no power or heir these quotes demonstrate the intersection of his morality and power because at the end of the play Lear has no power but still thinks immorally.
It is apparent that Lear failed to follow Machiavelli’s advice, that it is better for a ruler to be feared than loved. This failure results in a reduction of Lear’s power, despite the fact that he continues to have immoral thoughts that cannot be acted upon. This is demonstrated in Act One, Scene One where Lear wants to show how much power he has by having the last word when his servant contradicts him. In this instance, Lear is following Machiavelli’s advice as he threatens to kill Kent and is willing to follow through. In Act Four, Scenes Three and Six Lear realizes that his pride and arrogance is his ‘fatal flaw’ or hamartia and reasons that this is why he lost his power to the hands of his greedy daughters who flattered him. Here, Lear did not follow Machiavelli’s advice and was vulnerable as a leader because he valued being loved rather than feared and this left him open to manipulation. In Act Five, Scene Three the intersection of Lear’s morality and power is demonstrated as Lear has no power, but if he did, he would wish to use it to torture his Cordelia’s murderer. This shows that Lear recognizes the mistake of pride and arrogance and if he could go back, he would be more ruthless as a leader, and in doing so would embody Machiavellian characteristics. Shakespeare’s depiction of Lear leaves the reader with the message that when one falls victim to flattery and being vain, they are open to manipulation; thus reiterating the Machiavellian trait that for a leader to be strong and to avoid being overthrown, he must be feared rather than loved.
Works Cited
Primary Sources
Bondanella, Peter, and Mark Musa, editors. “The Prince.” The Portable Machiavelli, by Niccolò Machiavelli, Penguin, 1979, pp. 77–166.
Shakespeare, William. Oxford School Shakespeare King Lear. New York, Oxford University Press, 1994.
Secondary Sources
Ayyıldız, Nilay. (2019). An Evaluation of the Evil Characters in Shakespeare’s Four Principle Tragedies in terms of Machiavellian Principles. Gaziantep University Journal of Social Sciences. 18. 1037-1049.
Cundiff, Justice. (2017). Shakespeare and Psychology: Emotional Intelligence and
Machiavellianism in King Lear and Othello. Eastern Kentucky University. Honours Theses. 1-37.
Mirmasoomi, Mahshid. (2016) Hamartia and catharsis in Shakespeare's King Lear and Bahram Beyzaie's Death of Yazdgerd. International Letters of Social and Humanistic Sciences, 74, 16-25.
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