A court jester's primary responsibility in Elizabethan times was to amuse the monarch and other dignitaries. Fools were recruited to make errors, in other words. The term "fool" can refer to either mentally challenged children or, more commonly, to a variety of performers who sing and dance for the enjoyment of the court. The fool has a starring part in Shakespeare's King Lear. Upon the expulsion of Cordelia, King Lear's sole well-meaning daughter, from the realm, Fool steps in to defend her father. Because of the fool's witty use of irony, sarcasm, and humour, he is able to point out the flaws in King Lear's character. Acting in the role of a chorus, the fool critiques King Lear's conduct and serves as the king's conscience. So long as he's not in danger of being punished, he's the only figure who's capable of reining Lear in.
Even though Gobbo is employed to convey humour and irony to an otherwise serious piece, his exploitation of his father's blindness in the first act may also prepare us for the subject of cruelty that is present in the play. King Lear isn't the only one of Shakespeare's plays to have a funny scapegoat. We might also speculate that King Lear's "your bor'st thine ass on thine back o'er the ground" remark by the fool is a metaphor for the chaos in the hierarchy. Shakespeare uses the fool in the same way he does Touchstone in As You Like It as a comedy device, and the Elizabethan/Jacobean euphemism "thing" is employed as a synonym for penis. As an example of Shakespeare's use of the fool in King Lear, the character of the fool serves as a bridge between the audience and the stage. Many of the "all-licensed fool's" jabs are aimed at the monarch. Unlike any other character in the play, he was able to get away with this in the showdown between King Lear and his comic sidekick Kent in Act One, Scene One. The Divine Right of Kings, a Medieval doctrine that persisted into the early seventeenth century despite significant pressure, was still extant in the early seventeenth century and reflects Lear's absolute rule over the country – what he says is as good as God's word. This culminated in the Civil War of 1642-50. A reasonable man, Fool offers commentary on King Lear and foretells his flaws. Although some of the characters in Shakespeare's tragedies, like the fool in King Lear or the drunken porter in Macbeth, have humorous characteristics, their quips have a serious and frequently grim purpose, making them far distant from comedy. Though he intends to lighten the mood of King Lear.
When the Fool criticises and speaks to Lear in such a sarcastic and ironic manner, he frequently seems harsh. At times, the Fool's actions appear to be cruel, but one begins to realise how much he cares about his monarch and how protective he is of him as the play unfolds. First seen in act one scene four, the Fool's first address to Kent reveals that he perceives Kent as Lear's ally, and he appears in subsequent scenes. Lear, who had just paid Kent, says:
Lear: Now my friendly knave I thank thee; there’s the earnest of thy service.
Fool: Let me hire him too, here’s my coxcomb.
With Edgar's pretended lunacy and Poor Tom's poverty, the king is joined in his actual craziness by his plain humanity. He acquires knowledge by being stripped of his regal pretensions.
In fact, in this act, Lear reaches the apex of his madness and holds a sham trial for Regan and Goneril. This is one of Shakespeare's most tumultuous sequences, with Lear, Edgar, Kent, the Fool, and Regan and Goneril arraigned on stage, yet they escape in Lear's diseased mind, proving that reality can penetrate even the most bizarre of Lear's illusions to date. The fool's exit from the play in the height of Lear's madness may imply that he is no longer needed in a kingdom ruled by a psychotic maniac. In this scenario, Lear still has a lot of unanswered concerns about what's happened to him. He might be able to restore his sanity if he can discover why his daughters were so harsh to him. During the trial, the monarch names his idiot as a judge and instructs the other judges to "anatomize Regan: observe what breeds about her heart." As a result of Lear's comments, even Fool is unable to respond.
After this moment, the Fool is never seen again. His master's mental state has deteriorated to the point that he can no longer be saved by the idiot. Lear's death is predicted by his final line in the play, and he no longer fulfils the king's needs.
Fool: And I’ll go to bed at noon.
It is never clear whether the fool actually dies, but the lines spoke of Cordelia’s death:
Lear: And my poor fool is hang’d: no, no, no life?
Again, let's compare Cordelia to a bumbling fool.
An exhaustive list of the various roles that Fool plays for his monarch is an impossibility. The fool's only allocated brief is likely to be the least important: an entertainer of the court. Lear's guardian and buddy, the Fool, played a considerably more essential role than just entertaining the audience. A moral guide for King Aristotle was his most important duty. Lear is taught by the Fool that he is unable to know himself entirely.
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