Betrayal In King Lear

In King Lear by William Shakespeare, betrayal plays an important role throughout this story. The foreshadow to heartbreaks and other awful leading events begin with one of the many motifs/themes to this story, betrayal.

The worst feeling of pain anyone could feel is when you are betrayed by some who you though loved you. Betrayal is an act of disloyalty and it is violating someone's trust. In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, betrayal is a reoccurring action between many characters. This play shows the audience different types of betrayal that are imaginable, from a husband betraying his wife, a boyfriend betraying his girlfriend and a mother betraying the son and father. These actions of betrayal hurt the people that are most loved and destroys them where it most hurts in the end. Betrayal is one of the strongest and most important themes in Hamlet. The entire play revolves around the murder of King Hamlet. Betrayal is expanded even further, there

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 good characters, in the play King Lear, are considered good because they are loyal even when they are disguised from or unrecognizable by those to whom they owe loyalty. In addition, their loyalty does not waver even when they are banished or mistreated by those to whom they are loyal. Cordelia, Edgar and Kent are all characters that exemplify this goodness and unwavering loyalty.

King Lear is an actor who can only play the king. Thus, after he has abdicated his throne, passing the authority to his posterity, he still demands respect and power, which he is unable to claim from any of his former subjects, even his daughters. And as a king with no kingdom, he is an actor with no role to play, the most loathsome of all conditions. Lear himself realizes this, and in scene 4, he cries: "Why, this is not Lear" (4.204). And later in the same speech, he says: "Who is it that can tell me who I am?" (4.209). Lear is stuck in his role as king, unable to act in any other manner and powerless to provide for himself, causing the ultimate downfall of he and his

Of the deaths in Shakespeare’s King Lear, the death of Cordelia and King Lear at the end of Act V are most significant in revealing the development of Lear and how his development contributes to the theme surrounding it. The dynamic King Lear is a tragic hero whose fatal flaw, arrogance, prompts his removal from power and eventually the death of both himself and Cordelia. However, by the time of King Lear’s death, his arrogance has been replaced with a compassion which allows him to mourn the death of Cordelia and die from his own grief. Besides redeeming himself for his flawed judgement, the compassionate King Lear of Act V recognizes the loyalty in characters like Kent and Cordelia, while also seeing through the dishonesty of Regan and Goneril which fools the King Lear of Act I. King Lear’s transition from disowning Cordelia because of his arrogance to recognizing her as his only faithful daughter is demonstrated through Lear’s death, which serves as the culmination of his development and a reversal of his character. Furthermore, his death elaborates the theme of how someone’s arrogance may blind them from the reality of others’ intentions, which can be seen through a more compassionate and humble lens.

Using detailed supporting evidence, discuss the significance in the play of ONE of the following.

In books and in life older people are usually seen as wise and so this has become a stereotype. Older leaders are usually shown to be strong and always do the right thing because there wiser than their younger counterparts. This stereotype has become a little overused and so when you see a piece that goes against that norm, it becomes very interesting. In William Shakespeare’s King Lear the theme of sanity and corruption is developed through the motif of wisdom and age to illustrate the idea that older people are not always wiser than younger people. This play flips the idea of wisdom in relation to age on its head, which makes the plot all the more interesting.

   "Only through the loss of our possessions and worldly connections can one truly realize one's inner being" (Confucius). The true nature of man is known but is not commonly seen until adversity strikes. Characters reveal their true nature when they are reduced to nothing. In the play, King Lear, by William Shakespeare, there are three main themes that characters can be reduced by; social status, love and power. Through these three mediums the true nature of the works characters are exposed, by stripping away the innuendo, deceit and superficiality that initially cloaks each character.

Fisher, Jerilyn, and Ellen S. Silber. "Reading Between the Lines: Connecting with Gertrude and Ophelia in William Shakespeare's Hamlet." Women in Literature: Reading through the Lens of

Justice, the one essential key to being able to reside in an ordered and supportive world. Justice shown in the play King Lear prove how certain actions can never be taken without repercussions to follow. With justice occurring in the world, people's being identity changes. Attempting to improve oneself from what one's birth order denotes you to be will always cause you to be brought down to one's rightful place through justice. Although mercy plays an important role in the order of a society, justice is the one main fundamental requirement needed between the two in order to live in a favourable world.

Loyalty is being faithful to commitments and obligations. On the other hand there are many ways to display loyalty. One can be loyal to a person, political party, country, religion, or cause. The list is seemingly endless. William Shakespeare’s play King Lear exhibits many forms of loyalty, but one that shines particularly is loyalty to ones selfish needs. However there is a limit to loyalty which most over look. The characters Cordelia, the emotional King Lear, and the vile Edmund all manifest their loyalty to their own self, and all meet their demise. The limit to loyalty is death.

Shakespeare's Hamlet is filled with murder, revenge, and betrayal. The way the characters go about their revengeful murder says a lot about them. Claudius is a manipulating coward: he poisoned his own brother in his sleep in order to obtain the throne. Hamlet is completely indecisive: he spends majority of the play debating whether not to kill Claudius, when he would do it, and how he would do it. As soon as Laertes hears of his father’s death, he leaves Paris and marches an angry mob into the castle to demand blood. The methods in which the protagonist, antagonist, and foil murder others reflects back on their true in our character.

Shakespeare’s King Lear fabricated a world of its own, in which distinct virtues and vices were personified by individuals with diverse points of view. With each conflict in the play, the characters’ actions and decisions were parallel to the integrity of their heart and mind, exhibiting the virtue or vice they represented. With this strategy, Shakespeare shares that with trust should come discretion.

Both William Shakespeare and Tennessee Williams use the theme of deception in King Lear and The Glass Menagerie respectively to illustrate the difficulty of characters in accepting reality either by their own volition or due to the fault of another. Firstly, both plays use deception to show how parental figures like Gloucester and Amanda are unable to see certain truths about their children due to the unconditional love a parent has for their child. In the case of Gloucester, he is deceived by Edmund into believing that Edgar is plotting against him. Gloucester is unable to see through Edmund’s deceptions, he says Edmund is “no dearer in his account” (I.i.19) meaning Gloucester’s unconditional love and trust as a parent has blinded him from Edmund’s true ambition. Likewise, in The Glass Menagerie, Amanda deceives herself in believing there is nothing at fault with Laura. Tom points this out, saying “Laura seems all those things to you and me because she’s ours and we love her. We don’t even notice that she’s crippled anymore.” (Williams 47). Unlike Amanda, Tom is not under any illusions about his sister and acknowledges that it is love that allows Tom and Amanda to overlook Laura’s shortcomings. Amanda on the other hand has internalized her self-deception and from her fundamental misunderstanding about Laura arises her delusions about her future. Another similarity in the way these plays handle thematic deception is its use to escape a horrible reality. In King Lear Edgar