“Upon Such Sacrifices: King Lear and the Binding of Isaac”
I’ve compared King Learto a fairy tale in the past, but i haven’t compared it to a story from the King James Bible, even though Shakespeare, in all likelihood wrote and performed it for James himself. This article form the Jewish Review of Books is a comparison between Lear and the Old Testament Bible. First, the author has a tantalizing historical tidbit that might explain why Shakespeare chose to write Lear for King James:
Before ascending to the English throne, James VI of Scotland wrote a political guide, Basilikon Doron, for his eldest son advising him never to divide his kingdom (as Lear does) but “make your eldest son Isaac, leaving him all your kingdoms.”
Noah Millman.
The article also draws some fascinating parallels between Lear and other Biblical patriarchs especially the sacrifice of Isaac, which takes place in Genesis 22, or as it’s known in Jewish tradition, the akeda.
The akedah prompts different questions than King Lear does, not of how so much tragedy could have sprung from a foolish love test, but how the God of all creation could have put his faithful servant to such an unconscionable test in the first place. And so there is a long interpretive tradition that labors to elide that fact in increasingly creative ways. Surely God never intended Isaac to be a sacrifice—the boy was merely to be present at the sacrifice! How could Abraham have thought otherwise, when God had already sworn that it was through Isaac that his promise to Abraham would be fulfilled? Or, alternatively, surely Abraham never doubted that God was merely testing him—after all, Abraham tells Isaac himself that God would provide a lamb to substitute!
It’s interesting to see the parallels between Lear and an Old Testament patriarch. He constantly asks his gods for help and swears by them when he pronounces his doom, yet arguably he has no real faith in his gods or his daughters, which is why his foolish love test in Act I, serves as the catalyst that corrodes and destroys his kingdom and his life. However, maybe Lear sees himself this way, as a king appointed by God, with the authority to test his daughters’ love as God tested Abraham. Ian McKellen seems to share this view and sees Lear as a priest who is unwilling to give up his “special relationship with his gods.”
The actor playing Lear can benefit from studying the sort of old-fashioned patriarchs presented in the Bible because they help shape his worldview. In addition, the concept of faith and how it is tested is another big theme in Lear and contrasting how men in the Bible keep their faith while Lear loses it is an illuminating way to contextualize both works. Was Shakespeare trying to write a parable for kings? Perhaps, but he certainly encapsulates very well the struggles and anxieties of keeping power, and the desire for divine intervention when a kingdom bleeds.
James Earl Jones as King Lear at the Public Theater (1974)
This is my absolute favorite of all the King Lears I’ve seen. Jones nails the blind rage and puffed-up pride of Lear, while also being absolutely clear in his delivery. Unlike a lot of other Lears I’ve seen, you get the sense that, although this man is a bad dad and probably a bad king, he wasn’t always like this, that he was very respected and magnanimous.
In addition, the supporting cast is incredible- Raul Julia (famous for playing M. Bison and Gomez Adams), brings a delicious slimy charm as Edmund and Rene Aberjounois as Edgar brings every bit of his chameleon-like acting to Edgar, Poor Tom, the guy on the cliff, and the guy who fights Oswald. It’s simply astonishing to see Rene play so many different characters and do so many different voices in one performance.
The cast’s excellence doesn’t stop there- Rosalind Cash, Ellen Holly and Lee Chamberlain are all excellent as Lear’s daughters. Cash in particular has the bearing of a queen, and she isn’t afraid to go toe-to-toe with her father, even though he’s played with such might by Jones. Holly plays Regan as sort of a sniveling middle child, which I didn’t enjoy as much, but I think it’s a legitimate interpretation. And of course, Lee Chamberlain does a great job capturing the gentleness and grace of Cordelia, truly a “Kind and dear princess.”
Douglas Watson 1921-1989
Jones will always be my favorite performer in this version, but I have to give a special shout-out to Douglas Watson as The Earl of Kent. I’ll be honest, he really helped me understand the character, and I put elements of his portrayal into my own. First off, even with the elaborate verse that Kent has to deliver, Watson makes it sound like it was written yesterday. In addition, he does a great job of playing the ‘plain knave’ aspect of Kent. He’s gruff and loud, especially with Oswald, whom Kent can’t stand because of his simpering sycophantic ways. I hope I remain true to the spirit of the character, while, also giving it my own spin.
Hopefully watching all these great performances will get you interested to watch the humble little radio play, (though please don’t measure our performance against these masterpieces). Hope to see you tomorrow to watch the show!
Shakespeare’s King Lear is an age old tale. Like Cinderella it has been reinterpreted throughout time and in many different cultures. Here are a few interesting highlights in the old legend and how it got to Shakespeare in the 1600s.
The Princess Who Loved Her Father More Than Salt
This is an old folktale from my favorite podcast, Journey With Story, which starts with the Cordelia/ Lear plot of a foolish king who banishes his honest daughter. Then through extraordinary circumstances it becomes a Cinderella story. I think at some point these two stories were one and the same until they diverged and one became a story about an absent father and a wicked stepmother, while the other became about a wicked father and a dead mother.
The ancient ballad of King Leir, which helped inspire Shakespeare. It serves as a cautionary tale against flattery, and it places equal blame on Lear and his daughters:
And calling to remembrance then His youngest daughters words, That said the duty of a child Was all that love affords: But doubting to repair to her, Whom he had banish'd so, Grew frantick mad; for in his mind He bore the wounds of woe:
Which made him rend his milk-white locks, And tresses from his head, And all with blood bestain his cheeks, With age and honour spread. To hills and woods and watry founts He made his hourly moan, Till hills and woods and sensless things, Did seem to sigh and groan.
Even thus possest with discontents, He passed o're to France, In hopes from fair Cordelia there, To find some gentler chance; Most virtuous dame! which when she heard, Of this her father's grief, As duty bound, she quickly sent Him comfort and relief
The characters of Gloucester and his children, Kent, and the Fool are absent in this ballad, but unlike the fairy tale above, both Lear and Cordelia die in each other’s arms.
The Annonymous History of King Leir, (first published c. 1594)
The anonymous history of King Lear, written shortly before Shakespeare
This play was written for Shakespeare’s rival acting company The Queen’s Men around 1590). Since the Queen was patronizing the company, most of their plays were government-funded propeganda. For instance, it was the Queen’s men who first did a tragedy of the wicked King Richard III.
Michael Wood. In Search Of Shakespeare, 2002.
If you watch the first 20 minutes of the documentary above, you will see that Wood and many other scholars believe Shakespeare must have worked for the Queen’s men, or at least performed their scripts, since they did their own versions of King Lear, Richard III, King John, and Henry V.
However Shakespeare got a hold of The Queen’s Men’s scripts, he didn’t adhere to them rigidly. Their King Lear follows the fairy-tale / history format of having Cordelia be banished, disguise herself as a peasant (like Cap ‘O Rushes in the earlier version), and eventually she is restored to her rightful place. Shakespeare’s version must have been a MASSIVE shock to anyone who read these old tales and ballads. In Shakespeare’s version, everyone dies and there is no guarantee that the kingdom will survive. Every other tragedy ends with a new king or emperor to take over the kingdom but Lear leaves the audience with a sense of apocolypse; that Lear’s madness and Edmund’s machinations have doomed England and all these characters’ lives will be erased by Time.
As pessimistic as Shakespeare’s Lear is, it does seem more true to life than the previous versions. Perhaps this is because of a legal case from 1603 that might have inspired Shakespear to adapt the story: In 1603, two daughters tried to have their father declared insane. By an astonishing coincidence, the third daughter, who protested, happened to be named Cordelia! Perhaps Shakespeare, (who had three children and was preparing to retire), might have been inspired by this case and worried he might suffer the same fate.
This book Demonology influenced Shakespeare’s Macbeth and Hamlet in ways I’ll get into later. It was written by King James himself, and it takes the form of a dialogue, that is, an intellectual conversation where the concept of witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy, etc is explained, debated, and questioned between two imaginary people.
In the video, Youtuber Andrew Rakich, known for his history series, Checkmate Linconites, (where he plays two characters who argue about the Civil War from a Union and Confederate perspective) has done a dramatic reading of the whole book in the accent of 1600s England. It’s part audio book, part history lesson, part linguistics lesson, and all great!
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
Just like in Dr. Faustus, James theorizes that the Devil lets all so-called sorcerers and necromancers believe they have power over him, to deceive them later.
For as the humor of Melancholie in the selfe is blacke, heauie and terrene, so are the symptomes thereof, in any persones that are subject therevnto, leannes, palenes, desire of solitude: and if they come to the highest degree therof, mere folie and Manie:
This passage echoes Hamlet’s description of his own meloncholy, and his fear that The Devil might be trying to use his melocholy to conjure up his father in order to damn him:
The spirit that I have seen 600May be the devil, and the devil hath power 601To assume a pleasing shape; yea, and perhaps 602Out of my weakness and my melancholy, 603As he is very potent with such spirits,
603. As . . . spirits: i.e., because he has great influence on those who have a temperament such as mine. 604Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds
604. Abuses: deludes. If the Ghost is deceiving Hamlet about King Claudius’ guilt, and Hamlet kills him, Hamlet would be a murderer, and therefore damned. 605More relative than this: the play’s the thing 606Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.
Hamlet, Act II, Scene ii, reprinted from Shakespeare Navigators.com.
For that is the difference betuixt Gods myracles and the Deuils, God is a creator, what he makes appeare in miracle, it is so in effect. As Moyses rod being casten downe, was no doubt turned in a natural Serpent: [pg 023]where as the Deuill (as Gods Ape) counterfetting that by his Magicians, maid their wandes to appeare so, onelie to mennes outward senses: as kythed in effect by their being deuoured by the other. For it is no wonder, that the Deuill may delude our senses, since we see by common proofe, that simple juglars will make an hundreth thinges seeme both to our eies and eares otherwaies then they are. Now as to the Magicians parte of the contract, it is in a word that thing, which I said before, the Deuill hunts for in all men.
Demonology, Chapter 6, p. 23
It’s very useful to conceptualize what the early Jacobeans thought the difference was between God and the Devil, and thus the difference between divine miracles and hellish charms. In James’ eyes, all magic and demonic arts were mere illusions, designed to play upon men’s senses and draw the intended victim into the Devil’s power. Obviously, since all of theater rests upon such illusion, it’s no wonder Shakespeare portrays magic onstage in his most popular works. In particular, this passage calls to mind the magic of Prospero, who is able to conjure spirits fo a while, but they all eventually dissolve:
146. mov’d sort: troubled state. 147As if you were dismay’d: be cheerful, sir. 148Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
148. revels: festivity, entertainment. 149As I foretold you, were all spirits and 150Are melted into air, into thin air: 151And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
151. baseless fabric: structure without a physical foundation. 152The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces, 153The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
153. the great globe itself: all the world, [and the theater] >>> 154Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
154. all which it inherit: all who live on it. 155And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
155. insubstantial: without material substance. 156Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
156. rack: wisp of cloud driven before the wind. 157As dreams are made on, and our little life 158Is rounded with a sleep.
The Tempest, Act IV, Scene i.
For although, as none can be schollers in a schole, & not be subject to the master thereof: so none can studie and put in practize (for studie the alone, and knowledge, is more perilous nor offensiue; and it is the practise only that makes the greatnes of the offence.) the cirkles and art of Magie, without committing an horrible defection from God: And yet as they that reades and learnes their rudiments, are not the more subject to anie schoole-master, if it please not their parentes to put them to the schoole thereafter; So they who ignorantly proues these practicques, which I cal the deuilles rudiments, vnknowing them to be baites, casten out by him, for trapping such as God will permit to fall in his hands: This kinde of folkes I saie, no doubt, ar to be judged the best of, in respect they vse no invocation nor help of him (by their knowledge at least) in these turnes, and so haue neuer entred themselues in Sathans seruice; Yet to speake truely for my owne part (I speake but for my selfe) I desire not to make so neere riding: For in my opinion our enemie is ouer craftie, and we ouer weake (except the greater grace of God) to assay such hazards, wherein he preases to trap vs.
Demonology Chapter 5, page 15.
It almost seems in this passage that James is covering his tracks against any detractors who might be wondering if he himself might be damned for knowing so much about witchcraft. Accordingly, he asserts that the knowledge of witchcraft is perfectly lawful, it’s the practice that damns the scholar.
Playing a Disney princess is akin to playing a character in a William Shakespeare play. You’re not going to be the only one inhabiting the role, and chances are, you’re not even the first one to take on the part. These are characters that are bigger than one human being and that includes the people who wrote them in the first place. Figures like Ariel, Snow White, or Elsa endure for so long that they could never be tied down to just one performer.
Quote from DOUGLAS LAMAN ” The Untold Truth Of Brave.” Looper 2022
As I have done several times before on this site, I’m going to compare a Disney princess to a Shakespearean character, and if you’ve been paying attention, you can probably guess to whom I’m going to compare Merida, a Scottish woman who seeks counsel from a witch. That’s right, Lady Macbeth! But I’m not just going to write about how Macbeth is similar to Brave. In fact, I’m going to primarily focus on how they are not similar. I would argue that the film’s greatest strengths occur when it parallels and subverts a lot of the elements of Macbeth. I would further argue that the film’s greatest weakness is that it didn’t go far enough with these themes and ideas, and due to the film’s troubled (dare I say… CURSED) production history, it is frankly a bit unfocused and doesn’t have a successful conclusion because it didn’t commit to the ideas it set up at the beginning of the film.
Plot Summary
In medieval Scotland, a young princess named Merida (Kelly MacDonald), is strong, a skilled fighter, and a superlative archer. Yet, these skills are irrelevant and invisible to her mother Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), who believes that a princess should strive to be beautiful, poised, diplomatic, and willing to sacrifice her own freedom for the good of the realm. This is why she has positioned her daughter, the heir to the throne, to marry one of her father’s allies, which she has no interest in doing.
Merida chafes at her mother’s controlling nature and wishes to change her fate. First, she defies her mother openly by challenging her suitors to an archery contest, and (in a glorious mash-up of Robin Hood and Odysseus), she defeats them all with three excellent bullseyes!
Faced with her child’s rebellion and the diplomatic disaster that her behavior caused, Ellinor is of course furious. Earlier in the film, Ellinor mentions that a selfish prince brought his whole kingdom into bloodshed and war because of an act of defiance like this. Mother and daughter have a bitter argument that causes Merida to leave home and try to change her fate a different way.
Merida follows the legendary Will O’the Wisp into the forest and meets a witch, who promises to brew her a potion to change her fate and….
Cover art for “Brother Bear”
[Spoiler alert] This is where the story gets ridiculous. It turns out that the potion changes Merida’s mother into a bear. The second half of the movie is basically a Brother Bear ripoff where a character turned into a bear has to learn the error of their ways, and deal with being an animal. Yes, there’s conveniently a monster bear called M’ordu who Elinor has to fight as a bear to protect Merida, and with her mother unable to speak, Merida finally has to speak to the lords like a princess, which is all well and good, but the drama and character arcs set up in the first half are completely muddled once Elinor consumes that potion.
The cursed production
I was completely baffled by the choice to make Ellinor turn into a bear, especially given how grounded the first half of the movie was, but I want to make it clear- I do not blame the creator. Brenda Chapman, the original writer/ director had a very personal and clear vision for the story, as you can see in the quote below.
[I was inspired by] My love of Scotland, the old Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen fairy tales, but mostly my relationship with my daughter. She has been quite a challenge to my “authority” since she was five years old. I love that she is so strong, but it sure doesn’t make my job easy! She is my Merida … and I adore her.
Brenda Chapman, Ms. Magazine 2012
Chapman, who also directed The Prince Of Egypt, is clearly a very talented writer and director. It’s hard to know what the original story Chapman envisioned was, but as the quote above indicates, it was always intended to be a fantasy story that explores the relationship between a mother and daughter. Maybe the bear transformation was part of Chapman’s original idea, but I have to believe it would have been handled better than this.
In any case, the production suffered because Chapman found herself at odds with John Lasseter, Pixar’s CEO. Their clashes no doubt made it harder to develop the story in a productive way. Chapman points out that her being a female director, trying to tell the story of the first-ever female Pixar protagonist was in itself a ‘hard sell’ to the higher-ups at Pixar.
“I hit a lot of the issues with being a woman and also trying to put forward a female-led story.” She also claimed that her conflicts with former Pixar chief creative officer John Lasseter related to her being let go as the director of “Brave.” Chapman further remarked that plans to shift “Brave” to a father-daughter narrative didn’t work out and the film circled closer back to her original mother-daughter vision.
Brenda Chapman, writer and original director of “Brave”
By contrast, look at how the second director Mark Andrews describes the experience:
So it’s kind of like we are all pals and there’s a really good camaraderie and support system here, so if I’m sitting there going “I’m drowning! I’m drowning! I’m failing and I don’t know what’s going on, I need help!” they are there to help.
“I will not trust you, aye, nor no longer stay in your cursed company, DISNEY!”
So you can see that the decision to sack both Chapman and her original idea for the script probably cost Pixar precious time that they couldn’t use to develop the film; they must have grudgingly realized that throwing the mother-daughter relationship story aspect away wouldn’t work, and had to rescue that idea instead of developing it through the rest of the script.
So when I came on, I looked at it and I go “Okay, I just need to strip this down to who’s story is it? It’s Merida’s. Let’s go back to the basics with Merida and clean everything out. What does she need to learn? What is her arc? How is she going to go through this story? Who are the characters around her? Who is her biggest foil? Well that’s her mom, right? Why?” I had to just take all of these elements that they already had, but focus them down and clear a lot of the clutter away. There was a lot more magic involved and the magic was affecting the environment. “Do I actually need that to tell the story?” So there were those things.
In addition, the new director probably didn’t have a personal connection to the story, nor the support of the studio. I think it’s fair to say that based on Andrew’s description, Pixar was a bit of a boy’s club (at least in 2012), and I get the feeling based on the results of the film, that they weren’t putting as much effort into this story that features a female protagonist. If I were making this film, I’d probably connect the two halves of the story and borrow liberally from tropes in the story of Macbeth.
Shakespearean tropes in “Brave”
First of all, I’d like to mention that there are veteran Shakespeareans in the cast and creative team- Elinor is voiced by Emma Thompson, one of the greatest Shakespeareans of our time. Further, the movie is scored by Patrick Doyle, who did the music for every one of Kenneth Branaugh’s Shakespeare films. You can read about both of them in my review of Branaugh’s Henry V.
Trope 1: Fate vs. Responsibility
As in my review of Encanto, the title character of Macbeth is not the protagonist of Brave. In fact, he’s barely seen in the film at all, but he is mentioned many times; the wicked prince who eventually becomes the fearsome bear Mor’du.
Obviously, there are also parallels with King Lear, where the patriarch splits his kingdom between his children, and their cruelty and selfishness lead to civil war. However, I feel the Macbeth parallel is even more pronounced. Not only is the story set in Scotland, but the wicked prince feels entitled to the throne, and uses witchcraft to try and obtain it.
Both Banquo and Macbeth encounter the witches, but only Mabeth takes their prophecies to mean he must kill the king. He and his wife choose a dark fate and show themselves to be lacking in morals. Macbeth becomes an internal monster, while Mor’du becomes monstrous in every way.
What makes Mor’du work is that he is literally a cautionary tale for what Merida may become- her mother tells his story to warn her that if she continues to selfishly value herself above her kingdom, she may cause chaos and bloodshed, which she nearly does when she humiliates the lords at the archery contest.
Trope 2: Magic as forbidden desire
The film centers around the ancient Scottish myth of the will-o-‘the-wisp, which guides characters to their destinies. Like The Force, there is a dark and light aspect to the wisp. Sometimes they help people improve their fates, while sometimes they tempt people to their doom.
Both Merida and the wicked prince follow the wisp to a witch’s cottage and they both ask for the same thing- to change their fate. The prince asks for strength so he can win the civil war and become king, while Merida asks for the ability to change her mother’s mind.
The Witch and her ravenRaven- a symbol of bad news and bad omens.The witch hands Merida a wooden bear.
It’s also interesting that everything in the witch’s shop is bear themed. This could be a weird quirk of hers, or it might be another subtle way to thematically bind these two characters together. Maybe the old witch can sense these characters have similar spirits. It’s also interesting that the witch keeps carving bears when she gives up witchcraft, perhaps out of guilt for creating the monster Mor’du. As I mentioned in my post on the witches, they might not necessarily be evil, they merely facilitate the fate of the characters.
Trope 3: Toxic Masculinity and patriarchy
Witchcraft has long been a shorthand in theater and film for female power. Sadly, in Macbeth, it is framed as monstrous, that is, both attractive and morally wrong. When Lady Macbeth prays to dark spirits, it is because she seems unable to find any kind of power for herself, and resorts to witchcraft.
The raven himself is hoarse That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan Under my battlements. Come, you spirits That tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full Of direst cruelty!
Lady Macbeth, Act I, Scene 5.
As this funny sketch from Second City indicates, in a modern context, Lady Macbeth’s problem isn’t that she wants power or wants to make herself queen, it’s that she goes about it the wrong way. I absolutely love the way the actress says: “I really need a job.” It’s hilariously tragic the way the sketch sums up how useless and isolated this character feels.
Sorry about the ad, but again, this sketch is useful to contextualize Lady Macbeth’s frustrations with a patriarchial society- if female power is considered abhorrent, she feels she has no choice but to use abhorrent means, which begs the question- which is more evil- dark magic, or the patriarchy?
Merida and Lady Macbeth have the same problem; society has pre-determined their fate as nothing more than wives and mothers which is why they both seek out magic to change that fate. Likewise, Macbeth and Mor’du are driven by toxic masculinity to change their fates by violently seizing power.
Ian McKellen as Macbeth performing the Dagger Speech (Act II, Scene i).
What’s great about this film is that it has buried within all its silly bear comic subplot, a clever spin on a classic tale that touches on patriarchy, ambition, and greed. Like Encanto and Lear, what I like about Brave is that it takes Shakespearean tragedy as an example of what almost happened to the main character. I wish that some of the fluff and fur was trimmed off this story and that Brenda Chapman’s vision for the film was truly realized, to make the film a true masterpiece.
This is a 30 minute cartoon version of Macbeth originally produced for the BBC in 1992. It features Brian Cox as the voice of Macbeth (before he was the voice of McDonald’s), and Zoë Wanamaker as Lady Macbeth (before she was a witch who teaches at Hogwarts).
I like the way it portrays the horror imagery of the play in sort of a European-manga animation hybrid. Admittedly, there are better ones in the series, but this one is still pretty neat.
DVD box art for “Shakespeare the Animated Tales.”
To check out other episodes in the series, view this playlist:
