Women’s Power in Terms of Sex

In King Lear, when power is given to women it is equated with sexuality, but power is only sexualized in the precursor text King Lear. The implications of the transformation of sexualized power in the hands of women make the women the antagonists of the plays and make them seem wicked and cruel.

Lear begins the play with all of his kingly power. He decides that it is time to allocate his land between his daughters, and he decides how the distribution will be conducted. In Act I, Lear divides his land between Goneril and Regan because they lavishly state their love for him, while he banishes Cordelia. Cordelia does not receive any power because she refuses to falsify her love.

In the same Act, three scenes later, Lear observes the betrayal of his two favored daughters. They use the power he gave them against him. When power is transferred to the women it is changed into something sexual. A common theme arises: women’s power is always defined in terms of sexuality because the only type of power a woman can have over a man is their sexual charms and trickery.

When Goneril tells Lear he must get rid of half of his knights, Lear says, “Life and death! I am ashamed / That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus, / That these hot tears, which break from my perforce, / Should make thee worth them” (1.4.311-315). Lear is discussing his manhood, which in this statement could have multiple meanings. One definition of manhood from the Oxford English Dictionary means “relating to being an adult male.” So Lear could literally mean Goneril is emasculating Lear by forcing him to take an action he does not want to take.

A second definition of manhood from OED is courage and valor. Courage and valor can be equated to power. Therefore, Goneril is using her power to take away Lear’s power. Goneril is using her new powers to literally and figuratively take away Lear’s power. Some of Lear’s power lies in his knights, and Goneril is forcing them to leave, thus lessening Lear’s literal power. She is also exerting her power over the powers Lear retains in being the king.

Goneril’s sexual power is seen when manhood is defined as “the sexual potency of a man; the male genitals” (Oxford English Dictionary). Goneril’s power becomes sexual and by using her sexual powers she “shakes” Lear’s power. If one combines two of the aforementioned definitions: that manhood can refer to a male’s genitals and to his power, and then one can say that a man’s power is derived from his penis. If a man’s power lies in his penis, then a woman’s source of power must be her vagina. Man’s power is only defined in these sexual terms when it is discussed alongside the woman’s sexual power.

When power is defined sexually, a metaphor presents itself in the text. During consensual sexual intercourse, a man’s sexual organs are voluntarily consumed by the woman’s vagina. The man is voluntarily giving up some of his power to the woman. This figuratively happens to King Lear. Lear voluntarily gives his kingly power to his daughters, and when the power is represented by sexual organs, it is closely linked to the literal act of sexual intercourse.

In this passage, King Lear introduces the idea that when women have power it is destructive. He is ashamed that his daughter has the power and the will to do this terrible act to him. The word ashamed has a harmful connotation. Oxford English Dictionary defines ashamed as “with a negative.” Here Lear begins to frame his daughters in an evil light. Goneril and Regan’s personalities continue their descent towards wickedness throughout the rest of the play.

Goneril and Regan’s sexualized power makes them the antagonists in the play. They are hated by many of the other characters, and they do awful acts. They are perceived as conniving and manipulative. They carefully plan out the evil act they perform. As soon as her husband dies, Regan makes sexual advances towards Edmund. Goneril, on the other hand, tries to manipulate Edmund into killing her husband so they can be together. She attempts to use her sexual power to persuade him to carry out her wishes.

Cordelia, from the beginning, does not receive any of her father’s power. Until the end of the play, Cordelia is not heard from. After Lear’s betrayal by his daughters, and his fall into insanity, he is taken to Cordelia for help. Cordelia is framed as the forgiving child of Lear. She becomes his savior and goes to war with her sisters for him. Since Cordelia is never given power, she is not sexualized. Thus, she is not perceived as evil like her sisters. Cordelia becomes the protagonist in the play.

The distinctions between Goneril and Regan and Cordelia are because of the sexualized nature of women’s power. Regan and Goneril are evil because they exert their sexual power; Cordelia is benevolent because she is not a sexual being.

In Historia Regum Britanniae, the presence of Goneril and Regan is not very powerful. They are each given half of the kingdom because Cordella refused to speak of her love for Lear. As soon as this power is bestowed upon Goneril and Regan, it is transferred to their husbands. It is the husbands who decide to overthrow Lear. “The foresaid Dukes, with whom and his two daughters he had divided Britain, rebelled against him and took away from him the realm and the kingly power which up to that point he had held right manfully and gloriously” (Geoffrey of Monmouth, 3). From the beginning, Lear did not just give Britain to his daughters, but he divides it with his daughters and their husbands.

This passage suggests that Lear did not lose any of his power to his daughters or their husbands when he gave them Britain. Lear holds his power “manfully and gloriously” until he is overthrown. But the text states that the rebellion against Lear did not occur until a long time after he split up his land. It is interesting that Lear is able to keep all of his power even though he gave the physical manifestations of his power away to his daughters and the Dukes.

Power is never discussed in sexual terms in Historia Regum Britanniae. Power never needs to become sexualized because Goneril and Regan do not retain their father’s power. In truth, the power is never given to them; Lear intended to give power over Britain to them and their husbands. The Dukes rebel against Lear and even when Goneril wishes to remove Lear’s servants, she only does it after talking to her husband. Since men keep power throughout the text, Goneril and Regan do not seem as evil as their counterparts in Shakespeare’s King Lear or in the precursor text King Lear. While Goneril and Regan are not likeable characters, they are not manipulative or deceitful.

In King Lear, Goneril and Regan become sexualized characters. They exert their power against Leir, and they are described negatively in terms of their sexuality. Perillus says of Gonorill and Regan: “Nay, peace thou monster, shame unto thy sex: / Thou fiend in likeness of a human creature” (King Lear, 8). First, there is the recurring theme of shame. Shame once again is setting a negative sentiment in terms of women and their sexuality. Regan and Gonorill are seen as evil creatures because the power given to them transformed into sexual power, and when a woman exerts her sexual power she is evil.

Perillus uses the term “sex” to refer to Gonorill, Regan, and women in general. Oxford English Dictionary states that sex can also be defined as, “the distinction between male and female…the sum of those differences in the structure and function of the reproductive organs on the ground of which beings are distinguished as male and female, and of the other physiological differences consequent on these”. This definition is saying that sex is used as a basis of distinction. In King Leir, sex is the differential factor between male power and female power. Sex is a woman’s basis for power.

Before Gonorill and Regan receive their father’s power, they are referred to as “sweet princesses” and “kind daughters”. After, the daughters are transformed into sexual beings with power, they are “monsters” and are called “viper, scum, filthy parricide”. Gonorill and Regan actually are called the enemy of Lear in the shape of a human being. This transformation from terms of endearment to nasty nicknames is one representation of the change of power to sexual power.

Womanly power is almost nonexistent in Historia Regum Britanniae, but in King Lear the daughters’ power is derived from their sexuality. As in Shakespeare’s King Lear, the transformation turns Gonorill and Regan into wicked beings, the antagonists of the play. This makes the reader of the text feel pity for King Lear; his beloved daughters ruin his life. The reader overlooks King Lear’s participation in causing his situation. He pitted his daughters against each other just to meet the ends he wished to see.

In King Lear, he wants Cordelia to marry the man of his choosing. Also, he banishes Cordelia, his most loyal and loving daughter, to another country. When Gonorill and Regan are perceived as evil, it is easy to neglect the idea that King Lear may have deserved his fate.