The Significance of Cordelia’s Silence in King Lear
Cordelia’s silence in King Lear by Shakespeare can be analyzed through different views. Here in this essay I try to criticize this matter through the principles of Kate Millet, Louis Althusser’s hegemony, Jacques Lacan, Roland Barthes, and Michele Foucault’s epitome and language. Although Cordelia’s presence in this play is not much frequent in comparison with the rest of other characters, her silence can reveal exciting information about the historical roots of renaissance. In order to provide a comprehensive approach toward the revelation of the Cordelia’s behavior, I have tried to add historical perspective to all the above mentioned critical thinkers. Kate Millet in her eminent book The Sexual Politics (1969), declares that our sex is determined at the moment of birth by biology and our sexuality is determined by social conventions. For instance, the society decrees that boys must be aggressive and active whereas girls are supposed to be humble and inactive. Now let’s see how far Kate Millet’s claims can be extended to Cordelia’s silence during Renaissance era. Well as we know, Renaissance was a patriarchal period in which men attained the highest jobs such as King, Earl, Minister, and the rest. But women usually had the lowest or the most humble jobs such as cooking and taking care of children. In such a society men used to control women. King Lear was not an exception during his own time. He was the king and had full power over the others including his daughters. Cordelia also was brought up in a patriarchal society under the influence of his father. therefore her silence is a form of submission to patriarchal order or hegemony as Louis Althusser used to call it. Cordelia can’t talk to his father about her love because during her life time she had been repressed by the father and didn’t have a chance to expresses herself. Cordelia’s sexuality is characterized by humbleness and silence which were the main features of Renaissance time that all women more or less embraced them. Louis Althusser, the Marxist- Structuralist critic, believed that Family is the first institution of power that defines its members. Cordelia as we know is born into a royal family. Since the royal family is the foundation of power therefore it tries to impose its majesty on the family members then extend it to the whole jurisdiction. Cordelia is entrapped in the world of power. She can’t move freely with in such a realm and her silence signifies her awareness of the Hegemony. Within the system it’s not possible to escape from it. All one can do is to pause the system and then restarting it again. Therefore Cordelia decides to be silent because she knows that by her rejection from the court she can achieve the freedom. But as we know the system doesn’t stop and Cordelia is free temporarily because she is rejected from the court of England and is entered into the Court of France. The intermediary between her rejection from English court and her entrance into the French court is the only moment of freedom that Cordelia achieves by mean of silence. Cordelia’s silence can also be construed through the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan. He deemed that by the time children enter into the symbolic order, they look at the father as the symbol of social order. The father observes as an agent that children follow the orders and threaten them to castration if they fail in submitting to rules. Girls in comparison with boys have got more access to Imaginary order, during which they used to enjoy the time when they were united with their mothers. According to this view, King Lear is the agent of patriarchal order and he wants to prove his superiority by forcing Cordelia to admit her love to him. Metaphorically, King Lear is trying to preserves his own Phallic Stage and keeps Cordelia under his own jurisdiction. As soon as Cordelia expresses her love, she enters into symbolic order. However, her silence is a revolt against the symbolic order, therefore she violates the phallic stage of the King Lear and tragically she’s doomed to castration which manifests itself by her rejection from the court. Michele Foucault believed that every historical period is governed with one particular epitome. This epitome establishes the dominant ideology and chooses the language in which the epitome shapes and extends its power. According to this view, epitome, which is very similar to Althusser’s hegemony, identifies the people in the society and establishes their roles through language. In effect, language is device of power. King Lear through his majesty has been governing on his children for a long time. He was a powerful king and brought his children up according to the policy of court. Therefore, his questioning of Cordelia is asinine because love is not bounded in terms of dynastic jurisdiction, however; the language is and how is it possible for a woman to express her deep feelings through a monolithic and patriarchal language? Cordelia’s silence can also be interpreted by Roland Barthes’ S/Z article. Barthes deemed that meaning emerges from opposition. The most eminent opposition in King Lear tragedy is Lear underestimation of love VS. overestimation of love. The king is ignorant toward the malignant plan that her two daughters are planning against him but maybe Cordelia’s silence signifies her premonition toward the plan of sisters. She prefers to keep silent because she might know the established binary opposition by his power is a patriarchal one and it’s not feasible to break it. For during renaissance it was believed that the King is invested by the virtue and intelligence of GOD, therefore any action against his decision is revolt against GOD. Cordelia knows about this low nature of his father’s binary opposition. So she stays silent because she knows that if she demonstrates the true plan of her sisters, the king would consider it as a sign of disrespect toward himself And Cordelia has no intention for it. Cordelia’s silence can be interpreted through semiotic analysis. Semiotic analysis shows that the constitutive units of a narrative are macro- sequencing and micro-sequencing. The macro- sequencing refers to the establishment of main story line through the combination of micro-sequencing. The story of King Lear and his daughters is our main story line, and the story of Gloucester and his sons is the subsidiary story line. One of the major themes of the King Lear is the blindness of Lear to the truth. Cordelia’s silence which results in her absence in the English court, signifies the absence of truth to King Lear. However one must note that the subsidiary story line contributes to the revelation of main story line. Gloucester’s blindness is a metaphorical signification of his ignorance of the truth. King Lear also suffers from the rejection of the truth. In fact, Gloucester’s blindness contributes to the characteristic features of King Lear by the silence of Cordelia. As it was explored through the above paragraphs, although different approaches were applied to the interpretation of the text, most of them rooted in historical background. Even in the semiotic analysis of King Lear we can see that the blindness of King Lear toward the truth is attributed to his majestic arrogance. However, these and other approaches have provided only some authentic information about the Cordelia’s silence.

Written by
Amir Ali Qanbaryan.
Professor: Dr. Reza Taher Kermani.

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[ 3 ]. Rimmon Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: story events, 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge, 2008, Ps 15-16.