To the general population, understanding William Shakespeare is considered an impossible task. One feels unable to move past the slight language barrier and dive into the truly modern meaning. Though the language of Shakespeare may seem incomprehensible, Shakespeare’s King Lear is relatable to modern life; property is still being divided, men are still growing old and losing sanity, and siblings will always have a rivalry between them. A father must divide his property evenly and fairly between his offspring; however, because Lear is a king with a large ego, he feels that the largest amount of property should go to the daughter who loves him the most. Property is better handled by family than the state; therefore, fathers divide their assets between family members. It is better for Lear for his property to stay within the royal family and carry on his legacy. While fathers may try to be fair, assets cannot be divided perfectly evenly. Lear doesn’t even try to be fair, and he plans to split his land based on his daughters’ professions of love. “Tell me, my/daughters-/.../Which of you shall we say doth love us most/ That we our largest bounty may extend/Where nature doth with merit challenge” (I.i.50-53) Because Goneril and Regan want the most of the land and power, they spin stories of exaggerated and false love. “Sir, I love you more than word can yield the matter/dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty” (I.i.55-56). Cordelia cannot put her love for her father into elaborate words, and she is left with nothing. “You have begot me, bred me, loved me/I return those duties back as are right fit/Obey you, love you, and most honour you” (I.i.106-108). Her father banishes her because she cannot stroke his ego well enough. Lear’s dec... ... middle of paper ... ...e against him to strip him of what little power he has left. They work together well until they both decided that they were in love with Edmund. “I had rather lose the battle than that sister/Should loosen him and me” (V.i.25-26). Edmund causes more rivalry between the sisters than he may know; Goneril sent a letter to tell Edmund to kill her husband so they can marry. Goneril and Regan’s rivalry is characteristic of older sisters competing for power within the family; Cordelia has nothing against her sisters until they lie to get Lear’s land. Though the language of William Shakespeare may require some decoding, one will find that there is a modern meaning behind his works. Since property must be divided, men will always grow old, and siblings will always be at war, Shakespeare’s King Lear is a play that is easily applicable to modern life and truly timeless.
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
The focus in this scene is to show that Lear has so much pride that it made him blind to Cordellia’s love and the reason to why he loved. His pride made him think that flattery is love thus he gave everything to Goneril and Regan. This was his biggest mistake, leaving him completely dependent upon his two hateful daughters. He kicked Cordellia out so there is no hope of him being helped now.
Shakespeare, William. "King Lear: A Conflated Text." The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York:
In his madness, King Lear is hiding from Cordelia in cornfields. He is so, “overwhelmed with shame and remembers how unkind he was to her” (IV.iii. 42-43). King Lear remembers how at the beginning of the play, he disowned his daughter and gave her no part of his kingdom. He did this after she refused to flatter her father and told him that she, “gives back just as she should: I obey you, love you, and honour you” (I.i.95-96). He realizes that his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan, to whom he gave his inheritance, just used fake words to flatter him. He comes to recognize they were disloyal and disrespected him as a father after they disowned him and took away his knights. It is only Cordelia who truly loves him and comes searching for him after she learns of her sisters’ cruel behaviour towards him. This realization shows how he has evolved as a character and how Cordelia had a, “significant role in effecting change in the figure of Lear” (LeBlanc,
... for example critic Paul Kahn assesses the legal implications of King Lear, from the division of the kingdom where he explores the incompatibility of the value of love with the laws of the state, to the political and psychological implications of the actions of the play on the characters, speculating that his madness had commenced from Act 1 rather than later on in Act3 during the storm. It is evident that Shakespeare uses the embodiment of the idealised family as a foil to the insanity of each protagonist, as they reject the nurturing nature of what the family is supposed to be and do the opposite solely after their own selfish desires. Tragically, neither protagonists were free their families prohibited their social growth and Shakespeare allows them only to be in unison through death. Philosophically, they are more of a family in death than when they were alive.
The plot of King Lear is set in motion by the conversation between Lear and his daughters. In return for their love and honour, he will give them land and power. The fact that they are daughters and not sons is significant because Lear demands their total love, trying to put them into a mother role: something he would not do if they were men. Goneril and Regan are neither noble nor truthful and they have no problem lying to their father for their own personal gain. While Regan claims "I am alone felicitate/ In your dear Highness' love." (I.i.75-76) and later treats her father in the most reprehensible manner, Cordelia denies Lear's unnatural request saying, "Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters/ To love my father all" (I.i.103-104). Her truthful refusal to proclaim total love for her father proves her to be the actual loving daughter but results in her banishment. From this first scene, the characters' alliances and allegiances are forged and all that follows is directly resultant.
1-William Shakespeare. King Lear edited by Russle Fraser.(New York: Penguin Putnam Inc., 1982). All future references will come from this text.
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,
King Lear had come so accustomed to his praise, that it is the sole thing he lived for, he needed it to survive, his treatment as a king was his Achilles heel in this play. He wanted to step down as king and divide his kingdom into 3 sections, giving them to his daughters to rule. Goneril and Regan were more than willing to accommodate his request to demonstrate their love for their father and king by professing their love to him in dramatic fashion combined with a good bit of exaggeration. While Cordelia on the other hand, found it a struggle to profess what she thought to be known by her father and king, she states, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty / According to my bond; nor more nor less (Scene 1.1, Lines 91-93).
Hatred and desire fueled Goneril, Regan, and Edmund to lie in order to obtain their parents’ power leading to destruction within their family. Edmund’s hatred was continued by the reminder that he was only the bastard son of Gloucester driving him to lie to both of them ultimately ruining his father’s eyesight and his brother’s identity. Goneril and Regan got rid of their father while retained his power by lying about who loved him the most and took away his knights. From King Lear, Shakespeare concluded that greed and power are capable of ruining a family.
No tragedy of Shakespeare moves us more deeply that we can hardly look upon the bitter ending than King Lear. Though, in reality, Lear is far from like us. He himself is not an everyday man but a powerful king. Could it be that recognize in Lear the matter of dying? Each of us is, in some sense, a king who must eventually give up his kingdom. To illustrate the process of dying, Shakespeare has given Lear a picture of old age in great detail. Lear’s habit to slip out of a conversation (Shakespeare I. v. 19-33), his brash banishment of his most beloved and honest daughter, and his bitter resentment towards his own loss of function and control, highlighted as he ironically curses Goneril specifically on her functions of youth and prays that her
One purpose for such a violent scene is to define the villains of the story. The play opens with King Lear retiring and deciding to split his land between his three daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. The size of the land plot each daughter will receive will be proportionate to their love for their father. The older two daughters Goneril and Regan eloquently announce their undying love for Lear, and are rewarded generously. The third daughter Cordelia, who truly does love her father, refuses to participate in such a display of flattery and lies. Cordelia announces, in front of all Lear's subjects, that she loves her father, "according to her bond, no more nor less." Insulted and hurt by Cordelia's harsh denouncement of love, Lear disowns her. And Lear's best friend of thirty years Kent defends Cordelia, Lear banishes Kent too. Having given away his land, Lear decides that he's going to take turns living with Goneril and Regan. To remind him of his kingship Lear kept a hundred knights. But when Lear shows up with his army at Goneril and Regan's houses, his "loving" daughters kick him out.
Lear's relationship with his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, is, from the beginning, very uncharacteristic of the typical father-daughter relationship. It's clear that the king is more interested in words than true feelings, as he begins by asking which of his daughters loves him most. Goneril and Regan's answers are descriptive and sound somewhat phony, but Lear is flattered by them. Cordelia's response of nothing is honest; but her father misunderstands the plea and banishes her. Lear's basic flaw at the beginning of the play is that 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. Similarly, his test of his daughters demonstrates that he values a flattering public display of love over real love. He doesn't ask "which of you doth love us most," but rather, "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" (I.i.49). It would be simple to conclude that Lear is simply blind to the truth, but Cordelia is already his favorite daughter at the beginning of the play, so presumably he knows that she loves him the most. Nevertheless, Lear values Goneril and Regan's fawning over Cordelia's sincere sense of filial duty.
Bengtsson, Frederick. “King Lear by William Shakespeare.” Columbia College. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2015.
Lear is an old retired king who certainly doesn’t deserve to treated in the manner his two ungrateful daughters have done so. Lear might have lacked personal insight in banishing his two most beloved people around him, and lacked self-control and discipline in controlling his temper, but there could be no reason to justify the immoral actions that Goneril and Regan had casted upon them. They dejected, abandonned, hurted and even wanted to kill their own father. To Lear, maybe the thing that hurts him the most is the fact that his two evil daughters are his own flesh and blood. Not only has he been stripped of love, pride and honour, he has also been driven crazy by them. Lear might not have been sinless, yet the faults casted upon him is far greater than what he had wronged.