Animal Exceptionalism In King Lear Essay

The distinction between humans and animals in fact depends upon humans, as only beings that possess reason can be reasonable, and only those with such an ability that then fail to be temperate are reduced to a subhuman being. Human status is reached “not merely through struggle within the individual but also through the struggle between individuals,” and Lear relies on diminishing his daughters in order to maintain supremacy (Fudge 67). Lear emphasizes his daughter’s vices by comparing their volitional sins to animals’ predetermined, instinctual behavior. But Lear also uses animal rhetoric to victimize himself. He claims that the pain of Goneril’s ingratitude is “sharper than a serpent’s tooth” and that she “struck [him] with her tongue/ Most serpentlike upon the very heart.” “He becomes… ‘more sinned against than sinning’ now that they have become foxes, vultures, tigers, serpents” (Hoffele 189)
While Lear relentlessly utilizes animal analogy to condemn his daughters, Shakespeare uses animal imagery to undercut the belief of human exceptionalism. As Höffele indicates, the captain’s attribution of the act of murder to human employment in Act V, Scene iii expressly signifies that the final crime in King Lear is not the result …show more content…
In writing amidst “then-current notions of animal self-sufficiency, moderation, and natural wisdom,” Shakespeare uses animal rhetoric in King Lear to reveal the extent to which Lear ignores reason and lacks self-awareness. (Shannon 128). Understanding early modern society’s emerging recognition of animal advantage contextualizes Lear’s animal comparison, and clarifies that, although Lear primarily utilizes animal rhetoric to reprove others, he is the being that fails to reach his moral