Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Luce Irigaray in King Lear

In Act II scene IV When Goneril and Regan both treated him like crap and neither one of them gave him shelter. I thought about Luce Irigaray when she was talking about Sexual Difference in terms of space and time. I remembered the gap that mentioned on page 238 "But it is never found in the gap between man and woman. This gap was filled instead with attraction, greed, possession, consummation, disgust,etc." It seems to me that both Goneril and Regan filled in the gap. They both have all of the traits that were in the gap separating men and women: The two of them have some sort of attraction towards Edmund, They both are greedy in the way that they took over their fathers castle and they want to possess even more power by taking away Lear's remaining power (His Soldiers/Servants/etc). Irigaray also says that "The interval would never be crossed. There would be no consummation. Such an idea is a delusion. One sex is never entirely consummated or consumed by another. There is always a residue." I related this to the two daughters and Lear. Goneril and Regan have crossed the interval in some way but king Lear hasn't been consumed by them. I thought of the residue as the remaining power that Lear still has. That is why Goneril and Regan keep wanting to take it from him. In a way this play kind of supports Irigaray's thoughts and ideas. The stuff she said turns out to be pretty much true.

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