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One of the most revealing statements in Dr. Schlesinger's thoughtful and provocative study of King Lear and the generation gap comes early: “If Hamlet is the son's play, King Lear is the father's.” There's the rub. If I have any criticism to make of Dr. Schlesinger's combination of literary analysis, Freudian theory, and sociological commentary, my cavil springs from his point of view. Too often, like Lear himself, the author identifies with the sins of the fathers. From another viewpoint, that of the daughters, and especially of Cordelia, the fault lies in Lear, in his pride, in his insatiable need for what he considers acceptable (and respectful) rhetoric, in his reluctance to give up power, but mostly in his sadly warped vision of the real world.
True, Dr. Schlesinger grants Lear's flaws (as any serious reader of a tragedy must), but when he applies the lesson of King Lear to present-day age-youth splits, he retains Lear's, not Cordelia's nor Hamlet's, point of view. Youth are not only, as Dr. Schlesinger admits, rejecting nepotism and seeking conflict in order to test their identities—that is how a kinder, chastened Lear might view them. The young, like Hamlet before them, know that time is out of joint, know that their elders have produced, willingly or not, the bomb, the ghetto, the war. It is the hypocrisy of an alcohol-ridden generation that denies the solace of pot to its young—even while recalling anger at Prohibition—that enrages the youthful generation. And the young men and women see their own heavy penalties, of jail and combat-death, as somehow more honorable than their parents' evasions and liberal rhetoric.
“Words, words, words,” Hamlet responded to the old man's question as to what he was reading. Lear's rhetoric, and that of the liberal parents, leaves children with nothing but contempt for language and admiration for action. If the young must fight to
break free from their elders, they must comprehend Lear's motivation—which is not so much covert