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King lear tragedy analysis
King lear tragedy analysis
Critical views of cordelia in king lear
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Shakespeare's play, King Lear, tells a tale of misshapen oath through a series of betrayals and treason. When one is too deeply in love with his or her own world, he or she tends not to hear, purposefully, of the advice given by any other, if the given information is not to his liking. Such ignorant engrossment in one's illusions brought out a theme that a man's benighted misconceptions can lead to the ruination of his or her once unblemished world.
In the play, Lear lived a cavernous life as the King, sheltered by his own powers, wealth, and status. This lead him to intertwine his own veritable world with the characteristics of reality, which caused Lear to make the most dreaded mistake of his life, bringing death upon himself and his most beloved daughter. Lear's greed for status yet indolent shift was the start of this chaos. Stationed in his illusions, Lear expected faithful devotion and love from everyone beneath him, including his own three daughters, especially the youngest Cordelia. As a result, the King decided to split his land up amongst his three daughters in return for the daughters' words of love for him. Cordelia thought to herself, “What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent” (11). As the favorite daughter of King Lear, Cordelia also offers his father the most pure and wholehearted devotion. However, her reticent nature prevented Cordelia from speaking her feelings aloud. Her love for her father is simply too great to describe in words, unlike the sheer flattery her two elder sisters spouted. “Then poor Cordelia! (to herself) And yet not so,
Zhou 2 since I am sure my love's more ponderous than my tongue” (11). Although Cordelia is Lear's favorite daughter, Lear's misconceptions prevented him from listening t...
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...elming his heart as well, for his imprudence had killed the purest love given to him by his most beloved daughter.
A mistrust of the good and complete trust of the evil brought about the Gods' punishment on mere mankind. One foolish mistake lead to the eruption of chaos, and both the good and the bad suffered great loss. The sins of adultery and treachery against kinship is not so easily overlooked by the powers of the Divinity. Although one may break out from his or her illusions after experiencing through traumatizing despair, the reality he or she faces is much more barbarous. Such misconceptions on reality due to ignorance and naïvety lead to the downfall of not only the virtuous, but the iniquitous as well.
Works Cited
Shakespeare. King Lear. Ed. Barbara A. Mowat and Paul Werstine. New York City: Washington Square Publication of POCKET BOOKS, 1993. Print.
With Cordelia declared as banished, Lear states, “With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third...Only we shall retain The name and all th’ addition to a king. The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours” (Shakespeare 17). Lear’s fault here is that he believes that he can divide up his kingdom to his daughters and still retain the title as king; he wants to retire his position and responsibilities as a king but still remain respected and treated as one. His flaw in wanting to be superior leads to his downfall, as he is so blinded by his greed that he decides to divide up his kingdom to his two daughters who are as hungry for power as he is. They only want to strip him of his position and respect to gain more influence. Lear, not realizing the impact of such an impulsive decision, descends into madness when his daughters force him out of his home. After being locked out of his only shelter by his daughters, he states, “Filial ingratitude!...In such a night To shut me out?...O Regan, Goneril, Your old kind father whose frank heart gave all! O that way madness lies. Let me shun that; No more of that” (Shakespeare 137). Lear becomes fully aware of the consequences of his actions. He realizes how ungrateful his daughters are and how they have treated him unfairly even though he has given them everything; much to his dismay, he is left with
The theme of King Lear is the characters’ search for their “true selves”, the character Cordelia in particular has already found her “true self” through her love for her father, King Lear, but she is also the key to King Lear’s “true self”. In King Lear, Cordelia and her two sisters are asked by King Lear “Which of you shall we say doth love us most” (Brown, Act I Scene i), so that he may determine their shares of the kingdom and money. While the women will gain the benefits of these riches, the actual ownership will go to husband in the form of a dowry. Women are consid...
King Lear's hot temper and hasty decisions play a significant role in his fall from grace. His old age has caused him to behave impulsively, without any consideration for the consequences of his actions. When Lear asks his devoted daughter Cordelia to express her love for him, he becomes upset with her because she cannot put her feelings into words. He does not realize that she cares deeply for him and disowns her by saying, "Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee from this for ever (1.1.120-123)." It is only later, when Cordelia has left him, that Lear realizes he had made a wrong decision. In another fit of rage, Lear ...
King Lear has been in a position of authority and superiority. This position shapes King Lear into a man full of pride. However, as King Lear’s age grows, his emotional needs also grows. It is the false pride of Lear that blinded him with his emotional needs. King Lear behaved rashly and irresponsibly at the start of the play. Deep within Lear, he realizes that it is time for him to retired from this position of honor. Despite this realization, Lear’s pride keeps him from letting go of his power. King Lear wants the title and treatment of a king, but he does not want the work and obligations of the position. Therefore, when he makes the choice of letting his daughters to govern the kingdom, it foreshadows the strapping away of his p...
In The Tragedy of King Lear, particularly in the first half of the play, Lear continually swears to the gods. He invokes them for mercies and begs them for destruction; he binds both his oaths and his curses with their names. The older characters—Lear and Gloucester—tend view their world as strictly within the moral framework of the pagan religion. As Lear expresses it, the central core of his religion lies in the idea of earthly justice. In II.4.14-15, Lear expresses his disbelief that Regan and Albany would have put the disguised Kent, his messenger, in stocks. He at first attempts to deny the rather obvious fact in front of him, objecting “No” twice before swearing it. By the time Lear invokes the king of the pagan gods, his refusal to believe has become willful and almost absurd. Kent replies, not without sarcasm, by affixing the name of the queen of the gods to a contradictory statement. The formula is turned into nonsense by its repetition. In contradicting Lear’s oath as well as the assertion with which it is coupled, Kent is subtly challenging Lear’s conception of the universe as controlled by just gods. He is also and perhaps more importantly, challenging Lear’s relationship with the gods. It is Kent who most lucidly and repeatedly opposes the ideas put forth by Lear; his actions as well as his statements undermine Lear’s hypotheses about divine order. Lear does not find his foil in youth but in middle age; not in the opposite excess of his own—Edmund’s calculation, say—but in Kent’s comparative moderation. Likewise the viable alternative to his relationship to divine justice is not shown by Edmund with his ...
Lear character completely because of their inability to see people, both physically and mentally. This ignorance makes you think irrationally and make erroneous judgments. Although Lear is not really blind, his vision is something that is outside does not understand the identity and that of those around him. Early in the game, asks his three daughters, he loves the most, to share his inheritance. However, the opinions and the results of the blind Lear in his perception deceived by false words of love, and insensitive to Cordelia tells the truth, forcing him to ban his beloved daughter Cordelia and divided his inheritance of his unworthy girls. When Lear rejects Cordelia said: " We have no such daughter, nor shall never see / her face again (I , I , 1211 ) . Ironically, Lear Cordelia watched the face before, but I could not see banished. Moreover, Lear Shakespeare is taken to describe the idea that the form does not guarantee future.
Let us begin by looking at the role of human nature in King Lear more closely. It is clear from the beginning of King Lear that Cordelia has an entirely good nature, she remains constant throughout the play, never wavering in her morals. The play begins with Lear deciding that he will have his daughters compete for their divisions of his kingdoms based on which of them can impress him the most with their proclamations of love. Cordelia, however, cannot express her love for her father in words, and refuses to deceive him by doing otherwise, stating that she is “sure [her] love's more richer than [her] tongue” (1.1.78-80). She realizes that by holding her tongue she is infuriating her father, but her nature cannot allow her to do otherwise. When King Lear asks her what she has to say, she states “Nothing, my lord” (1.1.86). A...
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...
"Unhappy that I am I cannot heave My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty According to my bond; nor more nor less. " I.i.87-89 Cordelia's refusal to flatter her father during the love test may suggest to the audience that she is not only disobeying her father, but also committing political sui... ... middle of paper ... ..., is one of great pain and sorrow. It eventually leads Lear to madness and it is only then that he sees the true reasons behind his treatment.
Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favorite daughter, demonstrates genuine love to her insane and foolish father despite the fact she has banished and neglected for stating her honest feelings and intentions to her father. In Act 1, as King Lear is dividing up his grand kingdom, he gives the opportunity to his three daughters to profess their true love to him. The eldest two, Goneril and Regan, profess their fake love by giving lavish and bogus speeches in order to inherit the most land. However, King Lear’s most cherished daughter, Cordelia, simply neglects to give a superfluous enunciation, stating her honest feelings towards her father. Cordelia states, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty according to my bond; no more nor less” (I.i.88-90.). Lear, who expected a grandiloquent profession from Cordelia, enrages and unjustly banishes her from h...
(1964:278). Lear knew the value of true love through his suffering. The flattering words could not measure the true love between father and daughter. Lear said: you must bear with me. Pray you now./ Forget and forgive; I am old and foolish.
After Kent delightfully brings the two together and Lear realizes who he is talking to, he begs for forgiveness: “Pray, do not mock me. / I am a very foolish fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less /....Do not laugh at me, / For as I am a man, I think this lady / To be my child Cordelia.“ (IV.vii.68-79). Lear has finally achieved self-awareness regarding his mistaken banishment of Cordelia, and proclaims to her in a surprising display of humility that he is just a “foolish fond old man.” Shocking the audience, Lear does not hold back his newfound sense of shame. He goes on: “Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not. If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me, for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong. You have some cause; they have not.” (IV.vii.81-85). In another case of both humility and misjudgment, Lear believes that Cordelia no longer loves him due to his mistakes. Lear could not be more wrong because Cordelia 's love for her father is unconditional and still lives. Cordelia virtuously accepts his apology and assures him “No, sir, you must not kneel,” (IV.vii.67). Although the two do not live much longer, Lear intends to live out the rest of their lives being the best a father can
This tragedy play tells of the downfall of King Lear and the death of his daughter Cordelia. The play begins with the old Lear, deciding to retire, plans to divide his kingdom between his three daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.. With his daughters and men gathered around him, Lear asks his daughters, "Which of you shall we say doth love us most?" (Act I, Scene 1. 43). Both Goneril and Regan reply with flattering words of love which satisfied their old father, in turn he gave each of them a third of his kingdom. Cordelia, Lear's favorite daughter, answers with words from her heart, saying that she loves him as much as he loved her and as she should. However, Lear sees her words as disrespectful and demands Cordelia to reply again like how her sisters did, with flattering words.
Lear's vision is marred by lack of direction in life, poor foresight and his inability to predict the consequences of his actions. He cannot look far enough into the future to see the consequences of his actions. This, in addition to his lack of insight into other people, condemns his relationship with his most beloved daughter, Cordelia. When Lear asks his daughters, who loves him most, he already thinks that Cordelia has the most love for him. However, when Cordelia says: "I love your Majesty according to my bond, no more nor less." (I, i, 94-95) Lear cannot see what these words really mean. Goneril and Regan are only putting on an act. They do not truly love Lear as much as they should. When Cordelia says these words, she has seen her sister's facade, and she does not want to associate her true love with their false love. Lear, however, is fooled by Goneril and Regan into thinking that they love him, while Cordelia does not. This is when Lear first shows a sign of becoming blind to those around him. He snaps and disowns her:
Perhaps Lear's most difficult moment to endure is when he discovers his youngest and most prized daughter, Cordelia, dead. His initial reaction is of unbearable pain, but, being in his current state of madness, some of the anguish is alleviated when he "realizes" that she is alive. The king overcomes his earlier mistakes only after losing the one daughter who truly loved him. It's debatable whether Lear is completely conscious of his loss, but more plausible to suspect he is not fully affected by it as he is no longer in his right mind. Finally, Lear has dealt with the consequences of his decisions and is redeemed.