The Plague of Thebes in King Lear -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 22:56:20 01/31/08 Thu
Author: Hwaet!
Subject: The Plague of Thebes in King Lear

Introducing Ch 3 "What is a Myth?" in The Scapegoat, Girard calls "a generalized loss of differences" (the first stereotype of persecution) a "social and cultural crisis"; or, as he says in Ch 2, "Culture is somehow eclipsed as it becomes less differentiated" (14). The collapse of differences means the collapse of culture, and as Girard says of Oedipus Rex, the lesson is that "to lack difference is to be plague-stricken" (25).

Like Thebes, Lear's Britain lacks difference, and as in Sophocles' play, the source of this problem is the king. Both Lear and Oedipus violate or disregard the familial distinction, which is foundational to culture (15). Oedipus kills his father and marries his mother, destroying through murder and incest natural boundaries which the family unit assumes. Lear, too, disregards the distinctions of family--not consistently, which may be part of his trouble--in 1.1. He speaks much of the father-daughter relationship, but he shows how little he values it when he is dissatisfied with Cordelia's statement, "I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less" (1.1.93). To Cordelia, this means that she loves her father wholeheartedly, but to Lear this means that her love for him, like her bond to him, is negligible. And if Oedipus is a victim because he is guilty of "crimes that 'eliminate differences' (the second stereotype)," e.g., parricide and incest, then so is Lear.

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Re: The Plague of Thebes in King Lear -- Hwaet!, 10:51:26 02/03/08 Sun