Blood gushing from stabbed eyes. Sipping poison slipped by one’s very own sister. Fathers turning against their sons. Such are the horrid outcomes of the characters in King Lear. Shakespeare has written one of the greatest tragedies of all time with this play and from the very start, has provided no cushion of happiness for his viewers. They are immediately thrust into a world of turmoil-Lear’s favorite daughter is banished by him, Gloucester is deceived by his younger son, Lear is sent into a storm by his ungrateful heirs…and the list goes on. Yet, what is it that causes these wretched consequences? Is it because there are many diabolical personalities in the play? Many mistakes made by fathers in disbelieving their trustworthy children? No. The answer is that society is ultimately responsible for the end results of the play. The world of King Lear demonstrates for the audience, by illustrating with its various characters and their doings that a society built around a social hierarchy and material wealth will always be a place of unhappiness, filled with people committing wicked actions.
Shakespeare scribbled King Lear away between the years 1603 and 1606. This was a tumultuous time because Queen Elizabeth I had died but had left no heir and no husband to seize her monarchy. Therefore, the citizens were worried and the competition for her regency was strong. In writing the play, Shakespeare broached this uneasy topic by creating the character King Lear, who is unsure of whom to pass down his power too. Thus, Shakespeare builds a setting with many of the current concerns and problems of his Elizabethan world (yet they are approached in a disguised manner). This time period in England was one where...
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...me blind while if the sisters had never stolen their father’s trust, he would never have gone crazy, Goneril would never have poisoned Regan and committed suicide and Cordelia would not have died. Thus, the tragic parts in the tragedy would not exist just as a world without the unhappiness would be happy.
Works Cited
“King Lear: Background on Shakespeare.” PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
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Signet Classic Edition Teacher’s Guide. Hern, Leigh Ann; Ellis, W. Gieger; Reed, Aretha J. S. (co-eds.), Penguin. Web
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of King Lear. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2009. Print.
“The Stucture of Elizabethan Society.” Walter Nelson. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Jan. 2014.
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The Shakespearean play King Lear is one of great merit, with an excellent story. The play depicts the kingdom of Lear. Because the king is nearing the end of the reign, he divides his land amongst his daughters. However, once his daughters have received what they want, they begin to distance themselves from their father. There were other small sub-stories tucked away within the main plot of the story, most containing small amounts of corruption. The turning point of the story is when Lear makes the discovery that his daughters are beginning to betray him. The once prideful and stoic king falls apart emotionally, and the kingdom undergoes a dramatic split as the King’s once loyal colleagues let loose their corruption and evil as they turn into
Shakespeare, William. "King Lear: A Conflated Text." The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York:
King Lear is at once the most highly praised and intensely criticized of all Shakespeare's works. Samuel Johnson said it is "deservedly celebrated among the dramas of Shakespeare" yet at the same time he supported the changes made in the text by Tate in which Cordelia is allowed to retire with victory and felicity. "Shakespeare has suffered the virtue of Cordelia to perish in a just cause, contrary to the natural ideas of justice, to the hope of the reader, and, what is yet more strange, to the faith of chronicles."1 A.C. Bradley's judgement is that King Lear is "Shakespare's greatest work, but it is not...the best of his plays."2 He would wish that "the deaths of Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Gloucester should be followed by the escape of Lear and Cordelia from death," and even goes so far as to say: "I believe Shakespeare would have ended his play thus had he taken the subject in hand a few years later...."3
Lear’s character is constantly and dramatically changing throughout the play both by growing as a character but also through many downfalls. Lear becomes emotionally stronger and gains much more rationale near the end of the play, but only after a great downfall in each of these sectors. This was a result of the self-entitlement that Lear had placed on himself. King Lear’s vanity and excessive sense of entitlement was his tragic flaw throughout the play. He was a King, and needed to be served on time. Furthermore, when he is referred to as “my lady’s father,” this also hurts his ego for he is a King and that is what he wishes to be addressed
Communication is the key essential for one to fully understand and personify the thought of another. Without the key essentials themselves, a knowledge for wisdom and understanding would be lost, thus, causing a breakdown towards communication and emotional intelligence. Within the theatrical play, King Lear written by William Shakespeare himself, comes the story of the falling of an old English Elizabethan king, Lear, whose patriarch role was taken away; due to the act of his own pride. Other than the play’s main plot, King Lear too portrays the telling between the lost of communication and the consequences of its breakdown between people, parents and children. The lack of communication and understanding is shown throughout the entire play,
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia L. Freund. New York: Washington Square, 1957. Print.
way Goneril and Regan treated King Lear they way they as the result of jealousy towards Cordelia.
In creating the tragedy play King Lear, William Shakespeare plagiarized many sources in getting the base-line story, but it required his genius and intellect to place them together to create the true tragedy with its multiple plot lines that his play turned out to be in the end. The story of King Lear (or as it started, King Leir) is first seen in literature in the year 1135, contained in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae. Other authors placed King Leir into their stories including; John Higgins in A Mirror for Magistrates (1574), by Warner in Albion's England (1586), by Holinshed in The Second Book of the Historie of England (1577), and by Spencer in The Faerie Queen (1590). The most influential of all was probably The True Chronicle History of King Leir, which was anonymous. This play was performed as early as 1594, which is when it showed up in the "Stationers' Register." Kenneth Muir even suggested that Shakespeare "may have acted in it" (Muir 141). Shakespeare took the best of all the sources of King Leir, added his touches and personality, and created the masterpiece we enjoy today.
Edmund, Regan, Goneril, are dead, yet, alongside them lies Cordelia and King Lear. Gloucester for all his growth and redemption has perished as well. It would seem that human struggle and desire is not always fated to meet one’s expectations. Edmund who struggles with his own sense of worth throughout the entire play realizes at his end that he was loved. The objects of his affection are now dead due to foolishness. His attempts at a final act of goodness fail, as he is unable to save Cordelia. Cordelia, who embodied nothing but purity and good nature has lost her life for what seems to have been a vain cost. King Lear who has grown so much throughout the play, dies in despair and loss. Albany remarks, in regards to the deaths of the antagonists, that “all friends shall taste/the wages of their virtue, and all foes/ the cup of their deservings” (5.3.366-368). While he is correct that the villains have indeed gotten just deserts, his words leave no explanation for the deaths of our heroes, particularly Cordelia. By the plays end, the audience is left questioning the fairness of it all. Perhaps Kent and Edgar convey such feelings the best towards the play’s end. “Is this the promised end? Or image of that horror?”
King Lear, the protagonist of the play, is a truly tragic figure. He is driven by greed and arrogance and is known for his stubbornness and imperious temper, he often acts upon emotions and whims. He values appearances above reality. He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesn’t want to fulfill a king’s obligations of governing for the good of his subjects.
As a result of Lear holding on to his power, in the first scene of the play he does not take off his royal crown. Furthermore, Lear states, “The name, and all th’addition to a king: the sway, / Revenue, execution of the rest, / Beloved sons, be yours; which to confirm, / This coronet part between you” (Shakespeare I. i.136-139). Thus, Lear moves the power f...
King Lear by Shakespeare portrayed the negative effects of power resulting in destruction caused by the children of a figure with authority. Through lies and continual hatred, characters maintained a greed for power causing destruction within their families. The daughter’s of Lear and the son Gloucester lied to inherit power for themselves. Edmund the son of Gloucester planned to eliminate his brother Edgar from his inheritance.
The first flaw in King Lear is his arrogance, which results in the loss of Cordelia and Kent. It is his arrogance in the first scene of the play that causes him to make bad decisions. He expects his favorite, youngest daughter to be the most worthy of his love. His pride makes him expect that Cordelia’s speech to be the one filled with the most love. Unfortunately for King Lear’s pride, Cordelia replies to his inquisition by saying, “I love your majesty/According to my bond and nothing less';(1.1.100-101). Out of pride and anger, Lear banishes Cordelia and splits the kingdom in half to the two evil sisters, Goneril and Regan. This tragic flaw prevents King Lear from seeing the truth because his arrogance overrides his judgement. Lear’s arrogance also causes him to lose his most faithful servan...
Shakespeare, William. Tragedy of Macbeth . Ed. Barbara Mowat and Paul Warstine. New York: Washington Press, 1992.
Shakespeare, William, Barbara A. Mowat, and Paul Werstine. The Tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington Square, 1993. Print.