d 100-man retinue. His outrage at his thankless child Goneril represents perhaps his first real experience of ingratitude; compare this with his outrage at what he had thought was Cordelia's ingratitude. But Lear has not figured out the difference between vain perception and authentic experience. As he moves from Albany's to Gloucester's castle, however, only to be manipulated by Goneril and Regan into discarding 50, then 75, then 90, then 95, then all his knights, Lear's temper becomes by turns complaisant, angry, hurt, and more timorous. All the while, the storm outside and the chaos in the kingdom gather force, so that by the time Lear does leave Gloucester's castle, the "storm and tempest" (II.iv) are at full increase. As Goneril sums it up: "'Tis his own blame; hath put himself from rest, / And must needs taste his folly" (II.iv.293-4). The balance of the play demonstrates the content of that assertion.
Meanwhile, Kent's throwing off his noble robes and Edgar's stripping and befouling of himself with mud, which are deliberate transformations
...