The suffering body in KING LEAR.

The Greek word “pathos” means “suffering”, through this etymology and its relationship with the very genre of the play at stake, we understand the notion of suffering is central in the plot. Indeed, King Lear is a play in which the whole kingdom is soon turned upside-down by the political mistakes of the King who is supposed to be all-ruling and almighty but who fails to accomplish his mission properly and undergoes the ensuing consequences of his foolishness. Taking into consideration the various aspects evoked in it, “the suffering body” might be considered as a metaphor for Lear’s flawed state and realm, Lear’s subjects, Lear’s family, Lear’s own body, and more largely, all the experiences the numerous characters involved go through in the play. It seems clear suffering and its ongoing most probable consequence, that is to say, death, appear as purgatorial experiences. Thus, the suffering body is a kind of epitome for political, physical, mental and psychological sufferings. Suffering entails pains and wounds, hardships and failures, disease and treason, grief and punishment, disgrace and exposure. Yet, paradoxically enough, suffering linked with knowledge and understanding, also appears to be a normal step which accompanies the characters along their quests and journeys into nothingness, into nakedness, into exposure and into madness. And back from those journeys, suffering allows the characters to get answers to their questions, to get their real status and legitimacy back, to reach restoration of their own selves by discernment and recognition of their own mistakes, and to reach a new, better order in the best cases. However, in the worst cases, suffering leads the characters to live paroxystic experiences through a tragic fate, death principally and even symbolic suicide. Indeed, remembering the fact the play verges on the Absurd, the course of action irremediably converges towards the universal triumph of death, it