Similarities Between King Lear And A Thousand Acres

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King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare that illustrates his journey as a tragic hero seeking redemption for his mistakes as a father to his daughters and as a king to society. The contemporary film, A Thousand Acers directed by Jocelyn Moorhouse, revisits the classic tragedy of Shakespeare through a modern-day approach. Similar to Lear’s resigning of power to his three daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordilea; Larry Cook divides his land and power to his three daughter, Ginny, Rose, and Caroline. The parallelism of both story lines shares many similarities and differences. Both story lines are able to develop themes such as compassion, reconciliation, and appearance versus reality; but still differentiate in some aspects of those themes. In both literature works, King Lear and A Thousand Acres, illustrate the diverse characterization of parallel characters through, Lear and Larry, and Cordilea and Caroline. Lear and Larry different characterization not only shows the difference personality in both character but as well as the results in different …show more content…

The theme of appearance versus reality in King Lear is a theme that reoccurs throughout the play. In the beginning of the play, Lear falsely believes in the proclaimed love that Goneril and Regan have for their father. Lear’s egotistical character brings the false flattery as truth and blinds him from the ability to distinguish the actual truth. Ironically, Lear banishes Cordilea for speaking the truth about her honest appeal to Lear’s love. Even though Cordilea does in fact truly loves her father, she refuses to flatter him unlike Goneril and Regan by saying: “I love your majesty according to my bond, no more nor less” (Shakespeare I, I, 91-92). Again, because of Lear’s egotistical blindness, he lacks the ability to distinguish between appearance and

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