A Comparison Between the Plots of King Lear and Much Ado about Nothing

The Tragedy of King Lear has many important themes. One major theme concerns "nothing." The main focus around the discussion of "nothing" is that "nothing" is a many things. Nothing is what binds everything.

William Shakespeare’s King Lear is massive in scope and deals with many themes. I’d like to focus on King Lear’s relationship with his daughters as it evolves throughout the play as well as the play King Lear’s themes regarding politics and politicking. The passage I think best represents the conclusion of these themes is King Lear’s conversation with Cordelia in Act 5, scene 3 where they have been taken prisoner by the English. My conclusion from reading this passage closely is that in Shakespeare’s King Lear, King Lear’s speech to Cordelia regarding their impending imprisonment builds Shakespeare’s idea of caged potential and judgement for those who politic.

Shakespeare's King Lear is a play which shows the consequences of one man's decisions. The audience follows the main character, Lear, as he makes decisions that disrupt order in his Kingdom. When Lear surrenders all his power and land to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him, the breakdown on order in evident. Lear's first mistake is to divide his Kingdom into three parts. A Kingdom is run best under one ruler as only one decision is made without contradiction. Another indication that order is disrupted is the separation of Lear's family. Lear's inability to control his anger causes him to banish his youngest daughter, Cordelia, and loyal servant, Kent. This foolish act causes Lear to become vulnerable to

Romeo and Juliet and Much Ado About Nothing, two very different plays; however, they both contain love, intrigue and identity. Even with forces working against them, Romeo and Juliet and Claudio and Hero fell in love and were married. Characters were able to fall in love with the aid of the liaisons who helped them make sure things worked. Lovers would not have

   William Shakespeare is considered the greatest playwright of all time.  His gift for developing characters is one major aspect that accounts for this lofty acknowledgement.  Shakespeare created various characters from drunks and fools to kings and generals.  The characters are so human and so real that the audience can see aspects of their own personalities represented on stage for better or worse.  Inadvertently, Shakespeare's ability to characterize any type of person demonstrates his holistic education and knowledge of everything from military strategy and open sea sailing to music and religion.  As a result of Shakespeare's true-to-life

One’s downfall may be caused by many factors, such as an individual’s traits. In The Catcher in the Rye, Holden’s cynical behaviour towards those around him causes him to see his classmates around him in a negative perspective. Similarly, in King Lear, King Lear’s attitude towards his honest daughter, Cordelia causes him to banish his most-loving and caring daughter away from England. Then, both protagonists are prompted to a punishment of physical humiliation. Likewise, both protagonists are mentally ill and have reached a breaking point, causing psychological problems. In The Catcher in the Rye and King Lear, Holden and King Lear are led to an eventual downfall due to their behaviour towards those around them, physical humiliation, and

?Much Ado About Nothing'' is a postwar love story. Its principal subject is that of romance that may settle over the land after soldiers come home. I noticed that Much Ado is actually two love stories. One concerns sweetly innocent lovers who are driven apart by the plotting of enemies. The other involves very sarcastic lovers who are swept into each other's arms by the benign machinations of friends. I had a lot of trouble understanding the dialect, I grew up a country boy and we didn?t do much of this in my 14 persons graduating class. None the less I didn?t think it was a waste of time either. It was of very good quality as far as a plot is

In traditional comedic plot structure, there is typically a build-up of tension and quarreling that leads to a crisis towards the end of the play which has the potential to end tragically. In the case of Much Ado About Nothing, such tension centers around the pairs of lovers and is built up as a result of all the characters ‘noting’ each other throughout the play and thus misreading reality entirely. This tension, in fact, leads to the generic comedic convention of ‘death’ when Hero ‘dies’ after being falsely accused of adultery, though Leonato says of this, “Death is the fairest cover for her shame that may be wished for” (4.1.______). Hero’s ‘death’ brings forth the potentially tragic tipping point of the play: Benedict pledges to duel Claudio, Leonato is heartbroken and angry with Don Pedro and Claudio, and all pairs of lovers are effectively broken off.

In the play King Lear, the two characters Gloucester and King Lear, both run on very parallel paths. the turning point in the play where the reader starts to feel sorry for them is as soon as things start to go bad for them. Early in the play, Lear makes bad decisions on which daughters to give his land and power to, while Gloucester is making Edmund feel bad for being a bastard. Their decisions blow up in their faces and the reader starts to feel bad for them. King Lear is driven to madness and Gloucester has his eyes gouged out and want to kill himself. The impressions on both of these characters change throughout the course of the play in the same way.

What aspects employ the genre of tragedy within novels, plays, and cinema? Tragedy is something that is defined universally as the upheaval of any plot, story, or play where an event causes or leads to great suffering for everyone. Authors, playwrights, and even directors all know the certain scene or event that is key for the foreshadowing of tragedy to take place. This signal in any work allows us as an audience or reader to understand the meaning and significance for the need for a certain event to occur. King Lear the renown play about family ties by William Shakespeare has the genre tragedy stamped all over it due to the chaotic and brutal ending. The historian Hayden White’s essay “The Historical Text as Literary Artifact” focuses

King Lear, a tragedy by William Shakespeare, is about the delegation of power from the old generation to the young, new generation. Furthermore, the play demonstrates problems that can arise from a transfer made too early, from one generation to the next. A Thousand Acres is a modern retelling of King Lear, that is similar to King Lear, but it is not an exact word for word copy. The overall plot has been retained from King Lear, but some of the minor details have been changed to provide an intriguing new take on the same story. One such change is the fact the story goes from a third person view in King Lear, mostly following King Lear, to a first person narrative from the perspective of Ginny in A Thousand Acres. Ginny is the modern day version for Goneril’s character. King Lear and A Thousand Acres may take place in two different time periods; they both offer comments on the status of women, family relationships, and the natural order of things. The two time periods may be different, one modern day and the other set in the past, however the ideas presented are not that different on a whole. Both works presented share the same common thematic and universal elements throughout.

All texts can be read and understood, interpreted and represented in many different ways according to the views of the responder and their context. Many different interpretations of “King Lear” have been made, each valuing and highlighting different aspects and themes of the play. It is necessary for these interpretations to be made and adapted in order for “King Lear” to have relevance within the context of the society. Each interpretation of the text extracts and concentrates on certain ideas, issues, themes, values of the play, altering the way the play is received amongst audiences and critics.

This quote is coming from Cordelia in the first scene of the first act. Lear has just called his three daughters in and is dividing up his kingdom. The daughters are telling Lear how much they love him in order to influence the decision on dividing the kingdom. Regan and Goneril both lie and say that they love him more than words can express but Cordelia doesn't lie and tells the truth. In this quote, she says, “Lear you have raised me and loved me and I’m returning the favor. I love you just as I should, I obey you, I love you and I honor you. Hopefully, when I get married I will give you my husband and half of my love.” This quote is showing that in King Lear, Shakespeare uses characters to represent something greater. In the story, there are a few main characters that are big metaphors one being King Lear representing madness and insanity. A second being Goneril representing greed and lastly, Gloucester used to show the metaphors of people not opening their eyes to what's actually going on. All these metaphors have an important lesson to them that can be applied into the

King Lear by William Shakespeare tells the tragedy of Lear, King of England, who slowly, throughout the course of the play becomes mad and eventually dies. There have been many film adaptations of the play all of which try and remain as close to the original play; however, none appear to keep the same meaning of Shakespeare’s text more than director Richard Eyre’s film version of King Lear (1997). Shakespeare focuses in on each character’s flaws and their contributions to the consequences at the end of the play and although Eyre does the same in his film, he adds minor actions and scenes to the play to give characters of the play a light

The most prevailing images in King Lear are the images (metaphoric and actual) of nature. The concept of nature seems to consume the dialogue, monologues, and setting.