Allegory is used in written works to reveal a hidden meaning of something. Typically the hidden meaning is a political or moral one. The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser and King Lear by William Shakespeare use allegorical references within its sentences. Spenser once wrote to Sir John Walter Raleigh about his planned structure of his epic poem and revealed that each character and event is supposed to be an allegorical meaning behind it. Shakespeare and Spenser’s characters and events within the epic poem have an allegorical significance to them. Both writers use this literary device within their works but they did use allegory in different ways.
The Faerie Queene has many allegorical references within it. The character, Faerie Queen or Gloriana, is a representation of the royal queen at that time. Spenser is one of the most influential writers during the Elizabethan era that promoted the new English movement. Spenser first wrote The Faerie Queene to glorify and to get the attention of Queen Elizabeth. His intentions were to influence her and to establish a national literature of England.
Spenser was living in the post- English Reformation and during this time England’s national religion changed from Roman Catholicism to Protestantism. Some people in England fought for their country’s past national religion that resulted in religious protest. Spenser followed his Protestant Queen and believed that Roman Catholicism was the anti-religion. Many of the villains and battles that Red Crosse faces are religious allegorical references about the conflict between Protestants and Catholics during the 16th century. The point that Spenser tries to make is that Red Crosse must defeat the villains that represent Catholics in order to reassu...
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...that Shakespeare this play. There was a mayor named William Allen who had split up his wealth between his three daughters that had treated him similar to the way King Lear was treated by Goneril and Regan. His daughters treated him with no respect after he gave his wealth to them. This allegory represents that the mayor is King Lear and the mayor’s daughters represent King Lear’s eldest daughters.
The play, King Lear, also shows the political allegorical reference toward Queen Elizabeth’s society. Shakespeare’s opinions of England during this time were that its society was weak and Queen Elizabeth’s contributions made a frail society. Queen Elizabeth’s believed that respect should be shown to parents and the elderly. Shakespeare’s play is a clear indication that the daughters have no respect for their elderly parent, which goes against Queen Elizabeth’s beliefs.
The court case was involving with Sir William Allen, former Lord Mayor of London who was also a leading figure in the Company of Merchant Adventures, and her three daughters. All three of Sir William Allen’s daughters were married. Sir William Allen felt that his death is near, so he decided to divide his property between his daughters and he would stay at each in turn. As in King Lear, her daughters did not treat him the way he thought they would. They took away everything for him and claimed coal was a waste for someone like him. They treated him with scorn and disdain. Sir William Allen died in misery and were cursing his daughters when he was dying. This court case have many parallel events to King Lear after King Lear gives away his kingdom to Goneril and Regan. They treats King Lear with scorn and disdain. They even takes away King Lear’s knight that asked to keep in exchange for giving out the kingdom to them. When the storm strike, King Lear had nowhere to go. He was left in the forest and eventually met Edgar who is in disguise. King Lear cursed his daughters again and again. Eventually, he drove himself mad and many people pitied this man who was once the King of England. To some extent, Sir William Allen’s misery must had a huge influence on Shakespeare when writing the tragic play King Lear.
In Shakespeare’s version, Lear is the head of the family. He is the one who makes the decisions and calls the shots. However, he also makes the foolish decision to relinquish his power to his daughters and their husbands. In this household, and the one present in Smiley’s adaption, Lear is the one who holds the power. Even though Goneril and Regan are married, Lear is still the one who is the head of the household. However, once he decides to let go of his power, he struggles to adjust to the shift in power. Smiley utilizes this same struggle in her own novel by having him sign away his farm to Ginny and Rose. This idea of a shift in power signals an end to his reign at the top of this patriarchy even though he still tries to hold onto his place by placing certain rules and expectations on his daughters. If he were to have had sons, they would have taken his throne. This underlying idea is present in both works. It is a comment to the undesirability to have daughters as they do not have much of a role to play. Larry does not speak about his daughters in a positive light. He refers to them as the “whores” that “had sent him out into the storms and that he wished he’d had son” (Smiley 195). Lear does not speak much better of them and calls them “pelican daughters” (Shakespeare 78). Pelican is referring to feeding on a parent’s blood. Lear specifically uses the word
Lear words explained extreme power and control over his daughters. However his daughters did not dare to interfere with his decisions whether they were good or bad. King Lear character explained absolute power at the beginning of the tragedy, but afterwards his power vanished due to his mistaking
deeper meanings than what the reader can see on the surface. The allegorical meaning is the writer’s real purpose in writing the narrative so that a lesson can be found when reading below the surface. “Young Goodman Brown”, written by Nathaniel Hawthorne is a perfect example of an allegorical story and is filled with many symbolic elements.
In King Lear, Shakespeare portrays a society whose emphasis on social class results in a strict social hierarchy fueled by the unceasing desire to improve one’s social status. It is this desire for improved social status that led to the unintentional deterioration of the social hierarchy in King Lear. This desire becomes so great that Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall were willing to act contrary to the authority of the social hierarchy for the betterment of their own position within it. As the plot unfolds, the actions of the aforementioned characters get progressively more desperate and destructive as they realize their lack of success in attaining their personal goals. The goals vary, however the selfish motivation does not. With Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall as examples, Shakespeare portrays the social hierarchy as a self-defeating system because it fosters desires in its members that motivate them to act against the authority of the hierarchy to benefit themselves. A consideration of each characters actions in chronological order and the reasons behind such actions reveals a common theme among the goals for which morality is abandoned.
One of the main signals of the growing chaos of Lear's world is the distortion of familial and social ties. King Lear exiles his favorite daughter, Cordelia, for a trifling offense, and those daughters he does favor soon turn against him.
...These characters all show traits of wittiness, determination and strength. The traits Queen Elizabeth expressed as she ruled England, a single woman taking on a man’s job. Shakespeare included these characters in his play because he knew the Queen would enjoy seeing characters that portrayed her; it showed a sign a respect towards her. The Queen supported the theatre and Shakespeare in his work. Shakespeare thanks her by giving her females characters leads in his play with characteristics of her reflected in them. Queen Elizabeth ruled throughout Shakespeare’s life so it would influence him in his writings. She showed him through her rulings that she was a feminist. She did whatever it took to get what she wanted and to rule her country, she showed fierceness and compassion. Shakespeare took these characteristics and portrayed them in his female characters.
It tainted his familial bonds and gave him a sense of determination to escape society’s value of him. The notion of bastardy drives this aspect of the plot and is the single most important idea when looking into the phenomenon of cruelty between Edmund and Gloucester in King Lear. Edmund’s story is tragic because there is no resolution for his biggest grievance apart from a larger paradigm shift, marking a change in society’s value of the bastard. It is safe to say that Edmund and Gloucester’s relationship was plagued by powers greater than themselves. Shakespeare elevates their relationship to start a dialogue about family and societal values—creating a deeply layered and tragic
Edmund Spenser in his epic romance, The Faerie Queene, invents and depicts a wide array of female figures. Some of these women, such as Una and Caelia, are generally shown as faithful, virtuous and overall lovely creatures. Other feminine characters, such as Errour, Pride, and Duessa are false, lecherous and evil. This might seem to be the end of Spenser's categorization of women; that they are either good or bad. Yet upon closer examination one finds that Spenser seems to be struggling to portray women more honestly, to depict the "complex reality of woman" (Berger, 92). Spenser does not simply "idealize women or the feminine viewpoint" as he could easily do via characters like Una, but instead attempts to "revise and complicate the traditional male view" of women (Berger, 92, 111). Spenser endeavors to show various female characters, in both powerful and weak roles, and also to emphasize the importance of women in his society. Despite his intentions to give a fair representation, however, it is still obvious that Spenser was influenced by a society with a culture “whose images of woman and love, and whose institutions affecting women and love, were products of the male imagination” (Berger, 91). Throughout The Faerie Queene, Spenser reveals his anxiety about women and their power.
Shakespeare's King Lear is a play which shows the consequences of one man's decisions. The audience follows the main character, Lear, as he makes decisions that disrupt order in his Kingdom. When Lear surrenders all his power and land to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him, the breakdown on order in evident. Lear's first mistake is to divide his Kingdom into three parts. A Kingdom is run best under one ruler as only one decision is made without contradiction. Another indication that order is disrupted is the separation of Lear's family. Lear's inability to control his anger causes him to banish his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and loyal servant, Kent. This foolish act causes Lear to become vulnerable to his other two daughters as they conspire against him. Lastly, the transfer of power from Lear to his eldest and middle daughter, Goneril and Regan, reveals disorder as a result of the division of the Kingdom. A Kingdom without order is a Kingdom in chaos. When order is disrupted in King Lear, the audience witnesses chaotic events that Lear endures, eventually learning who truly loves him.
Faerie Queene, the narrative voice on matters of law is predictably placed in a position of
In King Lear William Shakespeare gives king Lear a very kind personality and a very caring father towards his daughters. King Lear possesses traits that make him a soft person one that is very, calm and gentle hearted. His softness comes out in the beginning when he exclaims he tells his daughters she who loves him the most will get all the land. Lear falls victim to the lies of Reagan and Goneril while he casts out Cordila his only daughter that did not sweet talk him and loves him truly. You learn that his daughters Goneril and Reagan want to betray him so they get the kingdom to themselves. The two evil sisters plot to kill Lear seeing that he is blinded by his love for them and his willingness to help them in times of need. The author betrays lear as king but the reader knows the plot from the beginning on to the end on what his daughters plans are for their father and how it leads into the later parts of the story.
In Shakespeare's “King Lear”, the tragic hero is brought down, like all tragic heroes, by one fatal flaw; in this case it is pride, as well as foolishness. It is the King's arrogant demand for absolute love and, what's more, protestations of such from the daughter who truly loves him the most, that sets the stage for his downfall. Cordelia, can be seen as Lear’s one true love, and her love and loyalty go not only beyond that of her sisters but beyond words, thus enraging the proud King Lear whose response is: "Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her". Here, Lear's pride is emphasized as he indulges in the common trend of despising in others what one is most embarrassed of oneself.
Shakespeare expresses two major themes in King Lear: love and wisdom. King Lear’s struggle to recognize authentic love, love himself, and acknowledge the wisdom imparted on him, due to his weak emotional state, results in needless conflicts and the deaths of many. In the first scene of King Lear, Lear reveals his plan to split his kingdom between his daughters by asking them how much they love him. The daughter that proves she loves him the most receives the largest portion of the kingdom (1.1.46-50). Kent intends to calm Lear down, yet Lear’s unstable emotions at the time lead to him thrashing out against Kent, even threatening him.
An allegory is a literary piece that represents a greater and hidden idea. Animal Farm is an allegory because it represents all the revolutions that have resulted in people's freedom, such as the civil rights movement and the Arab spring. Furthermore, Animal Farm paints a picture of how animals are treated horribly until they cannot work anymore, at which point they get killed or sold. This also is an allegory that represents the Holocaust.