King Lear Character Analysis

Shakespeare makes it difficult to understand the reasoning for the need of his daughters to publicly show him their love. They are hi... ... middle of paper ... ...as to pretend to love Goneril and Reagan, two sisters he knew would get jealous and go against each other, Edmund had a plan and he went through with it. Everything was going according, until Edgar found out about it when he discovered his father Gloucester without eyes. Edmund ends up being killed by Edgar. When we look at both characters, we can tell each had conflict between other characters.

Shakespeare's King Lear William Shakespeare's King Lear had downfalls in character which later on caused him to suffer extreme consequences. if anyone knows the true meaning of suffering it is King Lear. King Lear's downfalls are his pride, selfishness, and blindness to truth. Pride as one of Lear's first downfalls, in the beginning Lear disowns his lovely daughter Cordelia, because Lear is to blind to realize that cordelia loves her father for who he is and NOT what he has in his possession. Lear sees his daughters for what they have as far as quantity not quality.

What a Difference One Word Can Make in King Lear King Lear's response to Cordellia's failure to express her love for her father in words is symbolic of King Lear's madness in the play. His madness is most clearly manifest in his need for his daughters to testify to him of their love. Cordellia's failure to say that she loves him winds up destroying him. What is fascinating though is that it is not the rejection of him that hurts so much as his dismay that his daughter would say such a thing. The last line of the selection (Conflated Version 1.1.94) highlights Lear's anger at not only the words that Cordellia speaks, but Cordellia herself.

Kent was able to see Cordelia’s love for her father and tried to make Lear see the same thing. But instead he got punished for it. As the play progressed, Lear slowly came to clear vision. he realized that that his two eldest daughter did not truly love him after they locked him out of the castle during a tremendous storm. He also finally saw through that Cordelia’s love for him was so tremendous that she was not able to put it in words.

Kent does not agree with Lear’s decision and Lear banishes him too. Goneril and Regan won over the kingdom by lying and exaggerating their love for their father because of greed. Lear travels to spend his first part of his retirement with his daughter Goneril. With him travels his fool and Kent disguised as Caius to follow Lear because he knows he is making the wrong decision. Because Gonerils love for her father is fake and insincere, she does not want him there and makes it so that he is treated terrible by her servants.

Ophelia is losing Hamlet’s trust due to her dependency on Polonius and Claudius when she shares Hamlet’s private love letters with Polonius and obeying his advice to stay away from Hamlet. Moreover, Ophelia even plays a part in the plan to test Hamlet to see if he is insane just because the king and her father ask her to, not caring how would Hamlet feel. Because of these reasons,Hamlet is telling Ophelia that nunnery is the only place where she will be faithful and cause the least amount of damage. This quote also conveys a theme of betrayal in the play, where Ophelia betrays her true love, Hamlet.Therefore, the attitude towards woman in the Elizabethan era is the reason why Ophelia betrays Hamlet . After her father’s death, Ophelia emotionally goes mad and sings, “He is dead and gone, lady, He is dead and gone.

Disowning her because she refuses to exaggerate her feelings for him, whereby she only says she loves Lear as a daughter should love a father is his first major mistake and it is mirrored in the sub plot through the actions of Gloucester. There we see that he too immediately casts judgement on his loyal son Edgar and disowns him as a result of manipulation by Edmund. Therefore although overall it could be said that the two tragic heroes in this play are King Lear and Gloucester, we see that in Act One Cordelia and Edgar are characters to be sympathised with as they too are engulfed in tragic circumstances. The main way in which the sub plot mirrors the main plot is through the tragedy that falls upon both King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester. King Lear can be seen as a tragic hero because we as the audience experience pity for him and feel that he does not deserve the severity of his punishment.

Lear is trying hard to gain his daughters love from them, but it’s hard because they are into the materialistic stuff, that they don't care about him. The main act that I wanted to focus on was act four. I couldn't believe how they plucked out Gloucester's eyes, and stepped on them... very horrifying! On scene one, Gloucester explains how is he had his eye sight, he would do everything in his power to see his son once more. When Edgar finds out about what happened to his father, he is horrified.

Within the Play “King Lear” by William Shakespeare, King Lear is presented as a complex character who is emotionally driven, turns a blind eye to reality, and lacks the mental strength to combat certain conflicts, which leads him to make mistakes throughout the play. In the beginning of the novel Lear divides his kingdom between his two eldest daughters. He presents his daughters with the question of how much they love him individually. Both of the oldest daughters pledge there love to their father unconditionally. The youngest daughter Cordelia however who truly loves him responds with a statement that he is not quite fond of.

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. When Kent tries to confront lear about the mistake he is making about his daughters lear refuses to listen to Kent because he is still heated towards Kent while Kent being his devoted follower tries to tell lear that cordelia is the honest of his daughters. Lear still refuses to listen because of his pride as a king he won’t change his mind and is dead sure that he is right and everyone else is wrong about this opinion of his daughters betraying him and only loving him for his land and possessions like Reagan and goneril do.