The King Lear by William Shakespeare

The play “King Lear” written by William Shakespeare can be told in many different types of literature theories such as the Feminist theory which consist of describing the differences between men and women, or the Marxist approach which includes the art, literature and ideologies. I chose to do the Psychoanalytic or Freudian theory as it is often called which is another form of literature theory. The Psychoanalytic theory is very similar to the Formalist approach. This theory encompasses essentially on two almost contradictory critical theories. The first theory focuses mainly on the text itself, while the second focuses mainly on the author. This theory also focuses on by examining the conflicts, characters, dream sequences, and symbols. The three characters that I would like to include in my literary critical paper are Regan, Cordelia, and King Lear of course, because of their attitudes and the conflicts that they get into.

The first character I’m going to introduce is the youngest of King Lear’s daughters Cordelia who is mentioned somewhat throughout the story. All that Cordelia is trying to do is protect and take care of her father the king who is becoming very old. The first conflict that we see Cordelia get into is in act one when King Lear call for his three daughters and tells them to express their love for him in return they gain part of his land. Goneril and Regan both lie to the king and tell him they love him more than anything. Cordelia and Lear get into it because she tells him nothing at first and then tells Lear that she loves him as her father and nothing more. For doing so Lear gets upset and banishes her. Before Cordelia leaves her she tells her sisters “use well our father: To your professed bosoms I commit hi...

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... all of this, during the time William Shakespeare wrote this play he had most of the characters have two very different sides. Like if they were nice to each other or to other people they were faking it because in reality they wanted more than just a name, they wanted to own land and gain power. The only characters that aren’t included in this are King Lear, Cordelia, Edgar, The Fool, Kent, and Gloucester. Although at first Gloucester went along with Regan and Gonerils plot to over throw the king, but he didn’t know what was really happening, changed his mind, and tried to help the king. All the actions that these characters made, and all things that they really want really changed them and made them turn against their own families, which I think is wrong. But without Shakespeare's thoughts of having the characters act this way this play would probably be boring.