Kent as Everyman

One character that really intrigued me in King Lear that we didn’t cover too much in lecture was the character of Kent. Professor Little did mention in our first lecture on King Lear, that Kent was a throwback to the morality plays, a kind of ‘Everyman’ character. I would like to expound on this a little bit. Kent seemed to be in some form outside of the tragedy while being very participatory in the world that suffered through it. He is exiled at the beginning of the play for speaking the truth to the King, and instead of leaving the country he stays and ends up disguising himself as a servant in order to continue serving his king. Not normal behavior for someone who is exiled, especially considering that he is possibly risking his life to do so. Then, at the end of the play after everything completely collapses, he does not partake of the tragedy, and we are left with him saying “I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; / My master calls me, I must not say no” (sc 5.3 line 320). It is as though he has just been along for the ride, or perhaps more appropriately the journey.

I have not studied Everyman in depth, but from what I understand (please correct me if I’m wrong) it is one of the Morality Plays, and the gist of what happens is that God is unhappy with the world, so he sends Death to call Everyman to judgment. This then sends Everyman on a little sort of quest to find someone who will ascend with him to reckoning. He is denied by Fellowship, Kindred, Goods etc and ends up with only Good Deeds that will be taken with him.

This seems to be significant to the character of Kent in the sense that throughout the play he has been this helping hand. And then, in the final lines play his ‘Master’ is now calling him away, when it had been previously implied by his actions that his master was the king, who is now dead. Does this mean that Kent will now follow the King into death? Or perhaps his work in that place is completed now that the journey is over? Or maybe he just has decided to move on now that his ties of loyalty to Britain are gone. It somewhat baffles me, but just like Everyman, Kent is only left with the memory of his deeds when the play is over. All of the people he had been serving, or tied to in one form or another, are now dead. He only has the memory of his actions and loyalty, and not even a single living person to be a testament to what he has done. Combine this with the fact that he does not personally suffer from the tragedy, which removes him from the tragic elements of the play, and in this way he seems to have been allowed to assume the role of Everyman within this work. An astonishingly moral character, from a Morality play at that, within this chaotic, empty and crumbling amoral universe.

Dawn Reid