Chapter Synopsis of King Lear - Study Guide by William Shakespeare

Kent meets with one of Lear’s servants who describes how the King is walking through the storm, delirious and half mad hoping for the elements to destroy the land. It begins to become clear that the storm is a pathetic fallacy that mimics the turmoil taking place in Lear’s own mind. The gentleman says that Lear "Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn / The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain". This is the first sign we have of the "unaccomodated" Lear. Despairing of his "hag" daughters, he has begun to take on nature itself. In a sense the scene merely compensates for the storm that the Elizabethan theatre could not have provided with any degree of verisimilitude but the nameless gentleman also allows for an unbiased portrait of the king made man and heightens the anticipation for the Lear’s speeches to the gods in the next scene.

Kent recognises the servant and realises that he can trust him. He warns him that there is trouble afoot between the dukes of Albany and Cornwall and that a French army has landed on the South Coast. He sends the servant off to find Cordelia in order to gain help from her, he gives him a purse and a ring so that Cordelia will realise who the message has come from.

Act III, Scene II

Lear and his fool are out in the storm which is worsening by the minute as are Lear’s ravings. Kent arrives and is not recognised by the King yet he manages to persuade him to enter a hut that he has found near by. Lear acquiesces because he is cold and equally worried about the Fool suffering. The Fool is left on stage to comment about the fact that the natural order is being disrupted and his world is unlikely to be the same again.

It is quite impossible to sum up the impact of this scene. We see in it a new Lear, unrestrained and somewhere between absolute madness and total clarity. Initially he embraces the storm, literally commanding it as if it is one of his armies: "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! / You cataracts and hurricanes… Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, / Smite flat the thick rotundity o’ the world!" Lear is commanding an apocalypse, and though pathetic in one sense it is also a moment of pathos: we sympathise as well as condemn.

Lear, near-hilariously, and showing the contradictions inherent in his every thought and desire declares himself the slave of the elements (the "nature" goddess embraced by Edmund in I.ii) but also their master. This is the macrocosmic version of the microcosmic act of giving away his kingdom:

"Here I stand, your slave,

A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man;

But yet I call you servile ministers"

There is something distinctly but strangely touching when Lear, fulfilling his earlier claim that "patience I need", says "No, I will be the pattern of all patience; / I will say nothing". As such, he transforms himself at least in theory into a Cordelia. The self-pity in his other words, however, belies this claim. He tells us, "I am a man / More sinned against than sinning". In this line lie the crucial questions of the play: does he deserve what he gets?

Act III, Scene III

Gloucester explains to Edmund how uncomfortable he is with the way in which Lear is being treated. Yet he shows hope because he has heard by letter that French help is arriving in order to support the King. He warns his son that a word of this must not be mentioned to Albany or Cornwall. Unsurprisingly when his father has left Edmund reveals that he intends to tell all to the dukes and that he will profit from this as all that his father loses he will gain: "The younger rises when the old doth fall"

Act III, Scene IV