King Lear: Shadow Themes for Type 2 Connectors
(Flattery for Power/ Pridefulness/ Give 2 Get/ I'm the Nice One, Dear/ Repression of Need)
Dale’s Notes on King Lear as Type Two “The Connector”— an insistence on self-image as loved.
FILM VERSION: Anthony Hopkins (2018) or Ian McKellen (2008) as King Lear are solid. I also like the one on Hoopla with Peter Holdway (2017)-- the madness and the pridefulness are in full color. Watch with subtitles and break it up in a few watching sessions. There are also graphic novel and cartoon book versions, but it's best seen on stage or screen.
Best quotes ever...
"Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak, when power to flattery bows?” (Flattery is the realm of Twos: Three Instincts: Self Flattery -SelfPres, Seductive Flattery -Sexual, Social Importance as Flattery -Social.)
“Better thou Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.” (A Two goes to Type 8 in anger and vengeance when they are not appreciated.)
“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous… How shaper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!… Away! Away!”
“I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my horses ready?” (Kindness is the primary value for Twos, and it is their defended self-image as well.)
“Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow!” (Hysterics and histrionics are what the clinical implications are for Twos in psychological view.)
Opening scene begins with a flattering of Gloucester introducing Edmund who is meeting Kent: both flatter one another as his father Gloucester describes his conception. They flatter and promise to become “friends”.
Lear charms in public his two potentional son-in-laws Cornwall and Albany, calling the second of them “no less loving”... then says he’s divesting his kingdoms and wants to know who loves him the most... basically: Flatter Me.
“What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent” she says, when the flattery of Goneril begins. Regan wife of Cornwall goes next and Cordelia thinks aloud: “Poor Cordelia... but I am sure my love’s more richer than my tongue.”
“Mend your speech a little, lest you mar your fortunes” Lear tells Cordelia when she says her heart cannot be pushed into her mouth. (Cor-heart).
So young and untender? Lear challenges her. She says So young and true. This is a theme in the book related to an insistence on flattery: Do you want what is true or do you want what is tender and sweet?
Lear divests himself of care of Cordelia (now called a stranger to his heart) because she will not embellish her expression of love for her father. (Her connection to envious Type Four shows up in her mentioning that her sisters have given half their loves to their husbands and she herself is unmarried with all her love given in right amount to her father.)
Lear admits to have loved Cordelia most and hoped to age in her kind nursery; but because she would not flatter him, he disinherits her like an angry dragon.
“Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her,” Lear says as he divides her share of the kingdom between her sisters’ husbands. He tells them it is all theirs, but he will keep a large retinue of servants/knights around him and continue to be King in name only.
Think’st thou that duty have dread to speak when power to flattery bows? — Kent asks: Translation: Do you think that duty will risk speaking when POWER bows to FLATTERY? (A Question Under Trump Administration too!)
Kent challenges Lear to rethink all this, and Lear accuses him of being PROUD—- and banishes him from the kingdom upon pain of death. Lear also mentions that he has made his declaration and has never in his life revoked one: seems a Type One Righteousness and a Type Three Image Management stance. (Wings Are Shadows: Type 1 Perfectionist Zealot and Type 3 The Leader/Performer Tyrant)
Kent charges the flattering remaining attendees: “And your large speeches, may your deeds approve... that good effects may spring from from words of love.”
The play has DECEIT/FLATTERY as its major theme, esp in how elders are treated by the young. But the elders here are not necessarily wise: indeed they are proud puffed up fools.
Lear then goes on to call Cordelia’s suitors and shames/berates her in front of them, naming her worthless. (This calls to mind Richard Rohr’s mentioning once that Twos were called “The Burners of Heretics”in the middle-ages bc they were wiling to show publicly how good they were by making others bad. They were the ones proud to show the Spanish Inquisition how many sticks they brought for burning the heretics… )
“Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.” Lear says to Cordelia, his own daughter. Translation: Better it would have been that you were not born than not to have flattered me...... Burgundy denies her bc she has no land, and France wants her bc of her truthfulness.
Cordelia says goodbye to her sisters “with washed eyes”, referring to tears but I think also she loses her eyes later in the play. She calls out her sisters for their falsity and flattery.
The play then moves to the story of the bastard (male) Edmund who has no worth (a similarity now with Cordelia who was not a bastard but is now). He is scheming to take his legitimate half-brother Edgar down so he can have his father’s inheritance.
Edgar’s father ends up falling for the scheme and he disinherits his loving son. Two fathers fall for flattery and disinherit their true loving children.
“I grow, I prosper. Now gods, stand up for bastards!” ( Seriously: One of the best quotes, ever! ) NOTICE THIS Theme of needing to overcome and succeed at any cost will come again for us when we study Enneagram Threes (i.e. The Talented Mr. Ripley) who are often in rags to riches stories bc they feel their identity is always at risk of falling/failing... Edmund tells his father that he is trying to protect him from information that would hurt him (false letter). 3 DECEIT/2 FLATTERY: I know what is good for you. The letter says that their father is old and that they should split what is his.
OTHER THEMES in the play: Aging, disinheriting the old, the power elders have to threaten disinheriting the young. Lear abdicates but doesn’t really do so, Edmund/Edgar’s father is offended at finding a letter that wants to push him out of his seat of power by one of his sons….2s3s4s are IDENTITY/IMAGE TYPES (Triad of 2/3/4) Identities are always at risk and changing. Edmund’s soliloquy on his bastardly making under the stars and his need to overcome it is *wonderful* example of the shadow of Type 3– needing to overcome the lesser lot that they have been born to in order to rise above it all. Again: you’ll see someone just like him in The Talented Mr. Ripley!!!
“Ingratitude: thy marble hearted fiend”. -Lear
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child”. - Lear
“I will forget my nature! So kind a father!” -Lear
The Fool accuses Lear of being old before his time... that he has not become wise but foolish and mad. Lear begins insisting that he speak with his daughter Regan, to whom he reports that Goneril has inflicted “unkindness” upon him.... He also mentions hystrionics (what some Enneagram books say is the compulsed behavior of Twos)...
Lear begins to get histrionic over the HUMILIATION of his man: “Who put my man in the stocks” and calls the person who did it someone with fickle pride that only comes from the grace of she who he follows... He becomes revved up at his own humiliation as well. He has lost power and cannot use flattery or humiliation to regain it. We see Lear is as trapped and humiliated as his man (Kent in disguise) is! Some of the humiliation that comes from his daughters is over his age, btw... that he needs to be led rather than lead. Lear begins to bargain with his daughters over who he will live with, while naming the amount of servants/knights he thinks he needs. They reduce his needs to nothing.
“Oh I have ta’en too little care of this” Lear says as he experiences being homeless in the harsh winter, wondering how the homeless and others less fortunate handle the seasons (of the year and of life, I suppose)...
BEAUTIFUL SCENE: When Lear and Cordelia are arrested, she asks if they should fight and he says no: that they will live quietly in prison, humbly; and he will ask her forgiveness. His speech there is a highlight of the play, you’ll read it in the PDF.
A grand theme: "SPEAK WHAT WE FEEL, NOT WHAT WE OUGHT TO SAY": EDMUND SAYS THIS AT END OF PLAY.
FILM VERSION: Anthony Hopkins (2018) or Ian McKellen (2008) as King Lear are solid. I also like the one on Hoopla with Peter Holdway (2017)-- the madness and the pridefulness are in full color. Watch with subtitles and break it up in a few watching sessions. There are also graphic novel and cartoon book versions, but it's best seen on stage or screen.
Best quotes ever...
"Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak, when power to flattery bows?” (Flattery is the realm of Twos: Three Instincts: Self Flattery -SelfPres, Seductive Flattery -Sexual, Social Importance as Flattery -Social.)
“Better thou Hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.” (A Two goes to Type 8 in anger and vengeance when they are not appreciated.)
“Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend, More hideous… How shaper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child!… Away! Away!”
“I will forget my nature. So kind a father! Be my horses ready?” (Kindness is the primary value for Twos, and it is their defended self-image as well.)
“Hysterica passio, down, thou climbing sorrow!” (Hysterics and histrionics are what the clinical implications are for Twos in psychological view.)
Opening scene begins with a flattering of Gloucester introducing Edmund who is meeting Kent: both flatter one another as his father Gloucester describes his conception. They flatter and promise to become “friends”.
Lear charms in public his two potentional son-in-laws Cornwall and Albany, calling the second of them “no less loving”... then says he’s divesting his kingdoms and wants to know who loves him the most... basically: Flatter Me.
“What shall Cordelia do? Love and be silent” she says, when the flattery of Goneril begins. Regan wife of Cornwall goes next and Cordelia thinks aloud: “Poor Cordelia... but I am sure my love’s more richer than my tongue.”
“Mend your speech a little, lest you mar your fortunes” Lear tells Cordelia when she says her heart cannot be pushed into her mouth. (Cor-heart).
So young and untender? Lear challenges her. She says So young and true. This is a theme in the book related to an insistence on flattery: Do you want what is true or do you want what is tender and sweet?
Lear divests himself of care of Cordelia (now called a stranger to his heart) because she will not embellish her expression of love for her father. (Her connection to envious Type Four shows up in her mentioning that her sisters have given half their loves to their husbands and she herself is unmarried with all her love given in right amount to her father.)
Lear admits to have loved Cordelia most and hoped to age in her kind nursery; but because she would not flatter him, he disinherits her like an angry dragon.
“Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her,” Lear says as he divides her share of the kingdom between her sisters’ husbands. He tells them it is all theirs, but he will keep a large retinue of servants/knights around him and continue to be King in name only.
Think’st thou that duty have dread to speak when power to flattery bows? — Kent asks: Translation: Do you think that duty will risk speaking when POWER bows to FLATTERY? (A Question Under Trump Administration too!)
Kent challenges Lear to rethink all this, and Lear accuses him of being PROUD—- and banishes him from the kingdom upon pain of death. Lear also mentions that he has made his declaration and has never in his life revoked one: seems a Type One Righteousness and a Type Three Image Management stance. (Wings Are Shadows: Type 1 Perfectionist Zealot and Type 3 The Leader/Performer Tyrant)
Kent charges the flattering remaining attendees: “And your large speeches, may your deeds approve... that good effects may spring from from words of love.”
The play has DECEIT/FLATTERY as its major theme, esp in how elders are treated by the young. But the elders here are not necessarily wise: indeed they are proud puffed up fools.
Lear then goes on to call Cordelia’s suitors and shames/berates her in front of them, naming her worthless. (This calls to mind Richard Rohr’s mentioning once that Twos were called “The Burners of Heretics”in the middle-ages bc they were wiling to show publicly how good they were by making others bad. They were the ones proud to show the Spanish Inquisition how many sticks they brought for burning the heretics… )
“Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better.” Lear says to Cordelia, his own daughter. Translation: Better it would have been that you were not born than not to have flattered me...... Burgundy denies her bc she has no land, and France wants her bc of her truthfulness.
Cordelia says goodbye to her sisters “with washed eyes”, referring to tears but I think also she loses her eyes later in the play. She calls out her sisters for their falsity and flattery.
The play then moves to the story of the bastard (male) Edmund who has no worth (a similarity now with Cordelia who was not a bastard but is now). He is scheming to take his legitimate half-brother Edgar down so he can have his father’s inheritance.
Edgar’s father ends up falling for the scheme and he disinherits his loving son. Two fathers fall for flattery and disinherit their true loving children.
“I grow, I prosper. Now gods, stand up for bastards!” ( Seriously: One of the best quotes, ever! ) NOTICE THIS Theme of needing to overcome and succeed at any cost will come again for us when we study Enneagram Threes (i.e. The Talented Mr. Ripley) who are often in rags to riches stories bc they feel their identity is always at risk of falling/failing... Edmund tells his father that he is trying to protect him from information that would hurt him (false letter). 3 DECEIT/2 FLATTERY: I know what is good for you. The letter says that their father is old and that they should split what is his.
OTHER THEMES in the play: Aging, disinheriting the old, the power elders have to threaten disinheriting the young. Lear abdicates but doesn’t really do so, Edmund/Edgar’s father is offended at finding a letter that wants to push him out of his seat of power by one of his sons….2s3s4s are IDENTITY/IMAGE TYPES (Triad of 2/3/4) Identities are always at risk and changing. Edmund’s soliloquy on his bastardly making under the stars and his need to overcome it is *wonderful* example of the shadow of Type 3– needing to overcome the lesser lot that they have been born to in order to rise above it all. Again: you’ll see someone just like him in The Talented Mr. Ripley!!!
“Ingratitude: thy marble hearted fiend”. -Lear
“How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have an ungrateful child”. - Lear
“I will forget my nature! So kind a father!” -Lear
The Fool accuses Lear of being old before his time... that he has not become wise but foolish and mad. Lear begins insisting that he speak with his daughter Regan, to whom he reports that Goneril has inflicted “unkindness” upon him.... He also mentions hystrionics (what some Enneagram books say is the compulsed behavior of Twos)...
Lear begins to get histrionic over the HUMILIATION of his man: “Who put my man in the stocks” and calls the person who did it someone with fickle pride that only comes from the grace of she who he follows... He becomes revved up at his own humiliation as well. He has lost power and cannot use flattery or humiliation to regain it. We see Lear is as trapped and humiliated as his man (Kent in disguise) is! Some of the humiliation that comes from his daughters is over his age, btw... that he needs to be led rather than lead. Lear begins to bargain with his daughters over who he will live with, while naming the amount of servants/knights he thinks he needs. They reduce his needs to nothing.
“Oh I have ta’en too little care of this” Lear says as he experiences being homeless in the harsh winter, wondering how the homeless and others less fortunate handle the seasons (of the year and of life, I suppose)...
BEAUTIFUL SCENE: When Lear and Cordelia are arrested, she asks if they should fight and he says no: that they will live quietly in prison, humbly; and he will ask her forgiveness. His speech there is a highlight of the play, you’ll read it in the PDF.
A grand theme: "SPEAK WHAT WE FEEL, NOT WHAT WE OUGHT TO SAY": EDMUND SAYS THIS AT END OF PLAY.
| wagner_type_two.pdf |