Chip Kendrick

Essay I
Defective Rulers

	It has been shown again and again throughout history and literature that if there is 
a perfect human he is not also the perfect ruler.  Those traits which we hold as good, such 
as the following of some sort of moral code, interfere with the necessity of detachment in 
a ruler.  In both Henry IV and Richard II, Shakespeare explores what properties must be 
present in a good ruler.  Those who are imperfect morally, who take into account only 
self-interest and not honor or what is appropriate, rise to rule, and stay in power.
	Throughout Richard II, Bolingbroke is up against King Richard.  Richard is, to a 
considerable degree, the morally void opportunist: he does after all sieze Gaunt's lands at 
the moment of his death, taking the entire inheritance away from Gaunt's sons.  Richard 
lacks a sense of morality when it is to his advantage to ignore morality, and proclaims 
what is right when he thinks he can save his crown.  At Gaunt's death, when York 
attemps to point out that what Richard is doing is wrong, Richard says simply: 'Think 
what you will, we sieze into our hands/ His plate, his goods, his money and his lands'.  
Yet later, as Richard is surrounded and on the verge of defeat: 'We are amazed, and thus 
long have we stood/ To watch the fearful bending of thy knee,/ Because we thought 
ourself thy lawful king;/ And if we be, how dare thy joints forget/ To pay their awful duty 
to our presence?'.  Richard uses morality as a tool, a necessary quality in a good ruler, yet 
he is not manipulative enough.  Bolingbroke not only ignores morality in his dealings, but 
keeps up the appearance of moral right and goodness.  Bolingbroke knows how to let 
others take the falls for him, and is always letting Northumberland argue and make his 
cruelest pronouncements for him

'Northumberland: Well have you argued, sir;  and for your pains
Of capital treason we arrest you here.
My Lord of Westminster, be it your charge 
To keep him safely till his day of trial. 
May it please you, lords, to grant the Commons suit?

Bolingbroke: Fetch hither Richard, that in common view
He may surrender; so we shall proceed
Without suspicion.'

while he remains blameless and pure.  Bolingbroke is the superior ruler because he 
combines Richard's total lack of morality with deception.  
	The slip that nearly costs Bolingbroke ( Henry ) his crown in Henry IV is a 
violation of the principle that got Henry the crown.  For a moment the king is angered by 
Hotspur's prancing about his denied prisoners, and lets Hotspur know the reason for his 
ignoring Mortimer's capture.  Henry openly tells Hotspur and the crown of nobles present 
that he does not ever intend to pay Mortimer's ransom, and calls Hotspur an enemy to the 
crown for expecting his brother's ransom.  In a moment of anger, Henry has openly 
displayed his total lack of sympathy for the separated brothers, and called both threats to 
his kingship.  And he walks away!  Henry could easily have maintained control here by 
simply matching Hotspur's appearances and eloquence, and promising and delaying 
Mortimer's ransom.  Instead he lays open his Machiavellian intentions and walks off after 
laying down a threat.  His anger here is in some ways a virtue, in that at least it leads to 
honesty.  The human fault of deception has appeared here only in Hotspur's long 
explanation, and is not present in Bolingbroke, and here is the moment that Hotspur 
begins his turnaround while Henry begins his fall.  Hotspur, Henry's second challenge, is 
a revese of Richard.  Hotspur has appearances on his side, both when he uses deception 
in this critical scene and when he lays open his own philosophy about honor.  Finally, the 
honor and the quest for honor that has given Hotspur such great appearances does him in.  
Hotspur is defeated by one of his human qualities and his lack of enough of the human 
defect of deception.
	Richard, who has no real belief in morality, but does not bother to decieve, is 
defeated by Bolingbroke who is imperfect in both his deception and his lack of morality.  
Hotspur, who keeps up appearances with both deception and a flaunted sense of honor, 
cannot challenge Bolingbroke because of the doom his need for honor must lead him to.
	
Essay II
The Tragic Tragic Outcome

	In Othello and Lear, Shakespeare contrasts two endings that tragedy can bring.  
As Lear is thrown from kingship, he begins to see through his previous misconceptions 
about love, justice, and the nature of authority.  Othello, on the other hand, held no real 
misconceptions about the world.  He begins the tragedy nearly perfect, already a realist, 
knowing, for instance, that he is safe from scandal because of his ability as a general.  
The tragedy that befalls Othello cannot lead to any radically different awareness, and 
while Othello sees a few things more clearly is his death, such as his role in society, he is 
principally simply in despair.  Those who are furthest from the truth have the most to 
gain from the tragic cycle.
	Lear opens the play with the standard Shakespearean equation of appearance 
equals reality.  In order to determine how his power and land is to be distributed he asks 
his daughters to tell him how much they love him, blatantly asking them to put honesty 
and morality before their self-interest.  He believes, apparently, that they will do so, in 
that he rewards the daughters who give him the most overblown imagery and metaphor in 
describing their love.  When the daughter he ought to know loves him most gives the 
simplest and least overdone explanation of her love, he disinherits her for it.  He then 
procedes to exile his best and most honest advisor and stomps off.  Lear has a lot to learn 
here about who is telling the truth when and how you can tell.  Lear's subsequent 
downfall leads him to reconsider his actions here ( to say the least ), and redefine his 
concepts of justice, authority, morality and love.  Lear is completely reborn.  At the end 
of the play he knows who loves him and who does not, and sees justice and authority as 
they really are in his morally lacking world.  While Lear dies, he only truly becomes a 
person during his last hours, which is a better ending to his life than he might have had 
had he not taken the tragic fall.
	Othello on the other hand has very little to learn.  His tragic vision serves only to 
clarify what he already knows about his position in his society.  Even his greatest 
misconception, that Iago is honest and just, is not really a fault to be discovered.  Iago is 
so masterful in his deception that even the perfect realistic that Othello is cannot discover 
the lies.  Othello only loses.
	While Lear can benefit from his downfall, Othello already understands everything 
Lear has yet to learn, and so his tragedy can only be despair.  Othello is so poignant 
largely because of this: there is no good side to Othello's fall, he dies essentially the same 
as he was at the beginning of the play, having undergone great despair for very little 
added awareness.  The only reconcilation, it seems, is the knowledge that Iago will die.

Essay III
The Cycle of Ignorance

	Ignorance has been said to be bliss.  To equate appearance with reality is a facet 
of ignorance, and leads to a part of the bliss.  Many of Shakespeare's characters find the 
bliss of ignorance and revel in it, and some end up coming to terms with their gullibility.  
Some few are unwilling to abandon their ignorance even when they can see real truth.  
All are experiencing different stages of the human cycle.  Coming into the world, we are 
equipped with nothing more than recognition of appearance.  We must learn to the 
distinguish what is real from what is seen.  Those who have the opportunity to learn this 
difference will often deny the truth to live in bliss a moment longer, those who are no 
longer ignorant can occasionally re-enter the cycle in a moment of absolute trust and 
wonder, and finally there are those who have spilled off one end of the cycle or the other, 
and are trapped in a particular stage for their life.  In all cases, real truth is irrelevant to 
the human goal of happiness.
	The speaker of sonnet 93 is fighting his own intelligence to stay ignorant.  In 
order to avoid living a cycle of clear reason, he uses the fogging image of the ideal.  He 
tells himself he cannot see any trace of falseness in his lover because she is so beautiful: 
'Whatever thy thoughts or thy heart's workings be,/ Thy looks should nothing but 
sweetness tell'.  Essentially he has doubled back on his own mind: convinced himself he 
has not seen the change he has seen.  He is willing to sacrifice the truth he sees to 
prolong his happiness.  
	Miranda in The Tempest is shown slowly bridging the gap between her untouched 
childlike ignorance and the clarity she will not be able to deny once a part of the court.  
Nearer the beginning of the book, Miranda seems to almost proudly proclaim her 
innocence: ( first and last quote from exam sheet for Tempest, minus Prospero's line ).  
Finally in the ending of the book, we see Miranda is coming around slowly: 

'Miranda: Sweet lord, you play me false.
Ferdinand: No, my dearest love, I would not for the world.
Miranda: Yes, for a score of kingdoms you should wrangle,
And I would call it fair play.'

Miranda can abandon her total ignorance because doing so does not destroy her 
happiness.  In slowly discovering the deception that characterizes the world around her, 
Miranda seems to proudly proclaim her love as her new source of happiness and safety 
from the tragic portion of truth.  Because Miranda's happiness is safe in her love, she can 
move a little closer to the truth.
	Ferdinand is attempting to rediscover his ignorance through wonder and trust.  He 
has been in court up until the boarding of the ship that crashed to start the play and could 
not have been ignorant in such surrounds.  As his happiness is jeopardized by the 
apparent death of his father, Ferdinand attempts to rediscover bliss in ignorance.  When 
he first sees Miranda, his ideal portrayal of her is an attempt to find his ability to 
wonder:'Most sure, the goddess/ on which these airs attend! Vouchsafe my prayer/ May 
know if you remain upon this island, How I may bear me here.  My prime request,/ 
Which I do last pronounce, is ( O you wonder! )/ If you be maid or no?'.  Ferdinand even 
attempts to rediscover the wonder of the idyllic state, and his words compare the island to 
the garden of Eden: ( third quote on exam sheet ).  Then notice his reversion to a less 
ingorant state once his happiness is secure.  When Miranda accuses him ( gently ) of 
cheating, Ferdinand gives her a proclamation of ignorance: that any person would not lie 
with the world at stake.  He has switched places to some degree with Miranda, who is 
discovering her ignorance while he is re-inventing his own.  Then, the moment Ferdinand 
finds that his father is alive, he finds he can return to awareness of ingnorance and 
immediately admits that Miranda is not a goddess, in contrast to his earlier wonderment: 
'Sir, she is mortal;...', and begins to talk about courtship and marriage immediately after 
this.  Ferdinand's position in the cycle is determined by happiness and happiness alone.
	Finally, Prospero has come off the cycle and landed permanently in cynicism.  He 
has been exposed for a lifetime to that which, of all things, can contain the most wonder: 
magic, and has found it lacking: Act IV, scene 1, lines 146-158.  Having seen all that is 
wonderful, and being as intelligent as he is, Prospero cannot re-enter the cycle, even if he 
consciously attempts to do so.  Happiness is still involved here: Prospero cannot live with 
himself as a wondering fool, and so finds what comfort he can in cynicism.
	Happiness is the determining factor in each of these character's positions in the 
ignorance/awareness cycle.    We seek wonder when we are too close to the truth, seek 
truth when wonder is empty or exhausted.  The only way to tie oneself to the truth is to 
wind one's happiness around the truth until they are inseparable, while exhausting the 
capacity for wonder.