A Bit More on Bad Things Happening--and Shakespeare's Angle On the Matter

I taught Shakespeare for 23 years, a class every semester and sometimes more on top of that. King Lear is a favorite play of mine, especially for what it says about the nature of evil and of disaster. Like Steven King, Shakespeare believed evil is generated. Bad things happen because people disregard moral law. Disorder and chaos are generated by this. For Shakespeare, especially people in positions of trust of authority bring about dire results when they disregard good. Writers of paranormal can learn a lesson from the writer from Stratford.

Some examples:  Macbeth kills King Duncan and disaster comes on Scotland; Hamlet’s Uncle Claudius murders his brother and is pursued by a half-insane nephew who finds out he did it; Julius Caesar ignores prophecies; Romeo refuses to listen to Father Laurence’s counsel and does not reign in his temper and his impetuous way of doing things—and as a result, “never was a story of more woe / Than this, of Juliet and her Romeo.”

King Lear is a long, involved tragedy, but it is a good one for fantasy and supernatural writers to study. Lear is getting old and he’s tired of being King. He has decided to divide his kingdom up between his three daughters. He will spend the rest of his life partying and living it up. Good idea, right? No, it isn’t.

For one, he’s the King. He’s not supposed to relinquish his authority so he can party. Two, he is a

James Earl Jones as King Lear

man, and in that patriarchal society it was thought to be wrong for women (his daughters) to rule over men (King Lear). Finally, he grows angry at his daughter, Cordelia, who will not play up to his vanity, and exiles her, failing to show proper wisdom and love as a father. In violating what Shakespeare saw as moral strictures, the character invites disaster. And disaster comes.

 

The idea of transgression and disaster as a result is deeply embedded in Western culture. Sauron in Lord of the Rings wants to rule and does horrible evil to get what he desires; he becomes a demonic creature for this and unleashes violence and suffering on Middle Earth. In Stephen King’s short story, “Night Shift,” a company’s pollution of an area generates mutants that kill and begin to multiply to threaten civilization. Disrespect for ecological law breeds disaster and evil. Transgression of moral limits generates evil.

Lear’s two daughters turn on him and humiliate him. Eventually they plot to kill him. Cordelia, exiled in France, returns with an army to rescue him and civil war breaks out. Some of the most unforgettable examples of human cruelty are seen in this part of the play. The Duke of Gloucester, an immoral man who nevertheless is loyal to Lear, is blinded. The scene where this happens is as horrific as anything in a modern horror film. He was trying to get away and join Cordelia’s army in Dover. One of the daughters scoffs, after his eyes are gouged out, “Cast him out of doors—and let him smell his way to Dover.”

Blinding of Gloucester in a stage production

It is at that point, however, that the tide begins to turn. When one eye is destroyed, the sinful Gloucester cries, “O, ye gods!” One of the guards told to blind him draws his sword to defend the old man. The guard is killed but kills one of the “bad guys.” The good forces begin to gain a little ground and eventually win, but at a terrible cost. Lear goes mad. Gloucester eventually dies. Cordelia, who is the epitome of goodness, is murdered. In the end, the evil forces are defeated and the kingdom restored, but at a terrible cost.

Lear holding the body of Cordelia

Evil in Shakespeare, and much of modern fantasy, comes as a result of someone doing something they should not have done. To construct a convincing scenario of evil, fantasy writers must, like Shakespeare and others, give it a reason for coming into existence. Transgression, violation of limits, overreaching ambition, dereliction of duty, disrespect for nature or for natural law—all of these can lead to conflict and to evil getting the upper hand. In Shakespeare, evil eventually collapses on itself, but only after horrific things occur. Order and good are restored, but at a very great cost.

This is why I think we’re still watching Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet 400 years after their composition and despite different cultural assumptions and a difference in how is English is used that sometimes make the plays hard to read or understand when performed on stage. The old mythic idea that bad actions bring bad results—that when we sow the wind, we reap the storm—still fascinates us and gets our attention. It will get the attention of a modern audience as well as it got the attention of the people in the days of Queen Elizabeth and King James.

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