King Lear Jounal 3

The motif I have been tracking is the idea of keeping secrets and withholding information. Two passages that show this motif are:

"Edmund: I do serve you in this business.
A credulous father and a brother noble,
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy. I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit" (1.2, 186-191).

In this passage, Edmund reveals his secret plot to turn his father against his brother, Edgar, so that he will get the land inheritance instead of Edgar. Since Edmund is an "illegitimate" child, this seems to be his only chance at gaining the inheritance. I chose this quote because it is an example of the motif of secrets. Edmund keeps his plot a secret because of course it would not work if anyone knew what he was up to. In this case, it seems that Shakespeare is highlighting a person's willingness to keep secrets for self gain, not to help anyone else. It's not possible to fully assess Shakespeare's intentions, however, without knowing how Edmund's plan works out.

"Kent: If but as (well) I other accents borrow
That can my speech diffuse, my good intent
May carry through itself to that full issue
For which I razed my likeness. Now, banished Kent,
If thou canst serve where thou dost stand
condemned,
So may it come thy master, whom thou lov'st,
Shall find thee full of labors." (1.4, 1-8).

This quote also shows the motif, because it is when Kent reveals his secret plan of disguising himself so he can go back and work for King Lear, who has banished him. I think that he is keeping his plan a secret because he is going to do something harmful to the king that can only be committed from the "inside". Also, there have been clues that maybe Cordelia knows about Kent's plan, and that would give the motif more insight regarding who keeps a secret, who they choose to tell, who they choose not to tell, and why. I'm not completely sure, but I think that like Edmund, Kent is keeping his secret for self-gain.

I need to find more examples of secrets to really assess their purposes, and also need to see how the secret plans created by Edmund and Kent turn out in order to come to a conclusion. So far, it seems like the secrets being used are secret plans of single characters created to somehow help the one character who created the plan. It also seems like the secret plans are harmful to others....that is why they have to be kept a secret in the first place - so no one finds out and prevents the plan from being executed.