SHAKESPEARE'S FOOL IN 'KING LEAR'

     ROLE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF FOOL IN SHAKESPEARE'S DRAMA KING LEAR

     It is quite paradoxical that a fool should find a place in the tragedies. Unlike comedies,tragedies are serious plays dramatising the 'vales of tears' of human life. So, comedies are the fittest place for a fool. However Shakespeare introduces fool alike in his 'comedies and tragedies. His comedies like As You Like It and Twelfth Night and tragedies like King Lear and Antony And Cleopatra and Timon of Athens have the fools and clowns. In many of his other comedies and tragedies, there may not be distinct fools, but there are characters who perform the roles of the fools and clowns
The tradition of introducing fools and clowns comes from the Morality plays. They are beloved of the groundlings. Their antics, songs, dances, and jests often too gross and unverified delighted them and did something to make the plays a kind of variety entertainment. However, they are not always wholly conducive to the dramatic unity. This is why learned critics have often commented upon their relevance and wished their abolition altogether from the drama. Incidentally one may refer to Hamlet's objection to  them in emphatic terms. No wonder if their parts begins to decline as the time passes and drama advances. Their roar is diminished markedly towards the end of the 16th century. Ben Jhonson and Massinger completely exclude them.Even Shakespeare abstains from introducing  in his Roman plays and their is no fool in the last of his pure tragedies Macbeth.
whatever may be said about the history and the tradition of the fools in the drama and their relevance, the fact remains that the fool in King Lear is an important character and has been a favourite subject for the comments of the dramatic critics. A.C. Bradley, for example, says:
"But the fool is one of Shakespeare's triumphs in King Lear. Imagine the tragedy without him, and hardly him, and you hardly know it. To remove him would spoils its harmony as the harming of a picture would be spoiled if one of the colors were  extracted."
Similarly, F.S. Boas observes:
"The fool in King Lear is the only specimen of his class who appears  in Shakespearean tragedy, and he fills a unique role."
Needless to stress that Shakespeare treats the fool in King Lear with as much skill and perfection as he does the other important characters like Lear, Edgar, Kent etc. He makes the fools in this plays perform a curiously specialized function.
But before one proceeds further it is relevant to state that there is a great difference of opinion among the dramatic critics on the point whether the fool is a boy or a grown-up man or whether he is really a same man pretending to be half-witted or not. Though Lear often addresses him as a boy, it remains vague whether the fool is really a boy in his age or not, or whether Lear addresses him. So in a lighter mood or because of his closeness to and intimacy with Lear. But these points are beside our relevant discussion. Our discussion is restricted to a consideration of the fool's role and significance in the drama.
Again it is also desirable here to state that the fool is a  timid, delicate, and frail being. He pines away when Cordelia goes to France. Though he takes great liberties with his master, he is frightened by Goneril, and becomes quite silent when the quarrel between Lear and Goneril rises high and serious. In the terrible scene between Lear and his two daughters and Cornwell, he says not a word making us forget his presence.
It is also a common place criticism to say that the fool is a mere jester and his job is to divert and entertain Lear, the king, or to say that the fool is just a substitute in the Elizabethan drama for the chorus in the Greek drama. The role of the fool in King Lear is dramatically immensely significant.
Comment upon the significance of the fool in the drama, A.C.Bradley rightly refers to the storm-scenes. Bradley says that the effect of  the storms -  scenes depends largely on the presence of three characters - Lear, Edgar and fool and on the affinities and contrasts among them. All of them are different in their station and status  - Lear, a king, Edgar, a beggar , noble , and the fool, a commoner and lowly but all of them are leveled by one blast of calamity and afflicted by common insanity. This is to say that calamity and nature's cruelty overtakes them all without distinction. All of them suffer equally,through for different degrees.
This brings out another aspect of the fool's character. That the fool is heroic, is a remarkable quality in his character.His heroism consists largely in his efforts to out jest his master's enquiries at a time when it is most difficult to do.  It is a kind of heroism which is equal to Lear's personal endeavour to learn patience  at the age of eighty.
Further, the fool's comage devotion and faithfulness are equally heroic and admirable. In all days of prosperity and adversity of his master and at all places whether the court or the bad inclement whether out of the court, the fool follows his master and serves him best. Referring to this virtue in the fool, A.C.Bradley comments :
". . . his faithfulness and courage would be even more heroic and touching."
Above all, the fool plays the role of a regular commentator on the follies of Lear. Discussing this role of the fool, F.S. Boas rightly says, "The one theme upon which he harps without rest is the egregious folly of Lear in parting with his crown and putting his neck under Goneril and Regan's youk."
He regrets this folly in Lear.He brings to Lear's consciousness his helplessness  because of his folly to commit himself to the care of his hypocritical daughters.He brings out Lear's helpless position by comparing him with the lowest forms of animal life, with the snail, the eel,the oyster, the hedge-sparrow. He often attacks Lear's folly with dogged  snatches,with conundrums and epigrams. Clearly,the fool has a strange mixture of simplicity and acuteness. He has very keen mind,a sharp intellect and penetrating power.
He also performs a symbolic role, the role of Lear's guilty conscience. He is all most an outward form of Lear's voice of conscience.
Thus, to conclude, the fool in' King Lear' performs various roles-the role of jester, of a faithful friend,of a devoted servant,of a critical guide and commentator. so, he is "all things to all men." But he reforms his different offices with his unique devotion and humility sincerity and faithfulness and often with, half lavity and half seriousness. This Boas puts it:
The typical fool as has been seen in the case of Feste, is all things and it his office to sandy world with every chance comes on any topic . . ."