ABSTRACT
Psychoanalysts perceive and derive meanings of "nothing" from not quite satisfactorily coordinated vantage points of observations influenced by their theories of how the mind works. Shakespeare's King Lear provides an illustration of "nothing" and also of "nothing" as contrasted with "everything"—the inevitable all-or-nothing system of values that flourishes at the beginning of mental life and begins to develop in relation to mother and father. In the first scene, Lear is presented in regressive narcissistic dotage. He wants to be the favorite dependant, but also the omnipotent, child. He expects the most from his favorite daughter Cordelia. In Lear, the anal significance of nothing is brought out most fully in a later scene with the king, the Fool, and Kent. The Fool describes Lear's anal-submissive and auto-castrative act; he has provided his daughters with the power to bugger and castrate him.
