Glouchester — He that will think to live till he be old, Give me some help! [Cornwall puts out one of Glouchester’s eyes] O cruel! O you gods!

Regan– One side will mock another: th’other, too.

Act 3 was FULL of surprises, and I seriously commend Shakespeare for being so unpredictable in this act! Usually, as we have discussed in class, Shakespeare can be extremely predictable in writing his tragedies. But, this act really threw me off guard. For example, to elaborate on the quote I have included, Regan ordered Glouchester’s eyes to be gorged out! Not only does this reflect on what was said would happen in scene 1, when the Fool was foreshadowing someone would get their eyes put out, but it also threw in a huge curveball in the story. The scene became gory pretty quickly, and Regan gained power in a much more intense way than I ever expected her to.

Also, Lear became a little less powerful in my eyes, yet he gained a little more respect from me as well. He didn’t keep himself cooped up in his warm, safe home like usual. He got off his ass and went to take care of his matters himself (with the help and accompaniment of his Fool, of course). It was about time we saw Lear take some action rather than sending others to do his dirty work for him, especially (and surprisingly) in a huge, dangerous storm. Respect was rightfully gained due to his random act of courage in the scene. However, Lear lost a little power on his little journey (I feel like I just said ‘little’ a million times in this post so far… sorry guys). Lear had to stay in a little crappy shelter, and he was not okay with it. His power and authority was lessened simply because he did not have the better shelter, and he had to settle.

This act really set the scene for the climax of the play, I think. It made me excited to read on because we have so many things going on now. We have many different power struggle currently in effect, we have Gloucester losing his eyes, we have Lear losing power, yet still taking matters into his own hands, we have Cordelia coming back into play (the one who started this entire situation in the first place), and we have more and more little plot twists popping up here and there!

The excitement seems to keep coming and coming!