Bring out the significance of the Storm Scene in King Lear.
In King Lear we find a terrible storm, forming the very
dramatic center of the tragedy. It spreads over three scenes Act Ill, Scenes 1,
2 and 4 separated by a brief scene—scene Ill—regarding Edmund's affairs. It is
not an ordinary storm. The elements are fretful, the winds seem to blow the
earth into the sea. Its violence and terrifying aspects remind one of the doomsday's
disaster. King Lear resembles a stormy night.
It is on such a terrible night that the old and hopeless King
Lear is turned out of doors. The cruel daughters, as told by Gloucester, have
exposed their father "whose kind heart gave all" to contend with the
fretful element. The fact, heightens, on the one hand, the inhumanity of the
daughters, and on the other hand, accentuates our pity for the old king who, we
begin to feel is really "more sinned against than sinning
The storm carries forward the plot rapidly towards a climax.
It is on the stormy night on the heath that a number of important characters
come together. There is first of all, the trinity or trio of madness i.e. Lear,
Edgar, and the Fool. Kent is also there, and there also comes Gloucester, first
in search of the old King Lear and later himself as a blind, helpless old man.
The pelting of the severe storm completes the process of Lear's insanity. It
provides both the external shock as well as the stimulus of imitation,
necessary according to medical authorities, to drive a mentally touched person
to complete mental derangement. Henceforth Lear is totally mad. Lear is
obsessed with the idea of filial ingratitude, thinks that Edgar, too, has been
driven mad by the ill-treatment of his daughters, and proceeds to hold the
mock-trial of ungrateful children with the Fool and Edgar, acting as
"Justicers".
Just as the tempest on the heath completes the process of
Lear's insanity, so it completes the process of his regeneration. It is now
that he thinks of others. First, he agrees to seek shelter for the sake of his
poor boy, and then learns to feel and pray for the "poor naked
wretches." It is now that he discerns for the first time the falseness of
flattery and the brutality of authority.
The storm on the heath has a far-reaching symbolic value as
well. The violent disturbance in nature symbolizes the violent disturbances in
the moral world where Evil is rife, and where the Good no doubt, will assert
itself but only after terrible devastation. It also symbolizes the wrath of the
gods at the ungrateful children and is a warning to them of the approaching
doom. But above all, storm in nature is an externalization of the tempest that
rages within the breast of the helpless, old King.
The storm scenes strike the very keynote of the play. The
storm brings forth Lear's tragedy in a different dimension. It is the investing
of King with motley: it is also the crowning and apotheosis of the Fool. The
old Lear dies in the storm and the new Lear is born in the scene in which he is
reunited with Cordelia. His madness marks the end of the wilful, egotistical
monarch. He is resurrected as a fully sane human being.
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