Edmund In Julius Caesar Essay

As they become more powerful than Lear himself and have the authority to do as they please, Lear starts to finally get a grasp to the situation. As all of this is happening the readers find out of Edmunds true identity. While he hides his identity from his father he does everything in his power to gain his father’s respect, in order to steal his title. For Edmund to get his wishes granted he betrays his brothers. In act 1 scene 3, he revealed his plan to the readers: Convincing his father into thinking Edgar wanted to kill him and convincing Edgar into leaving and banishing; never speaking to his father again. Here betrayal is being used to get one's way

Much like Lear, Gloucester opens the play by shunning his role – that of a father. He embarrasses his illegitimate son, Edmund, when he says to Kent "I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to ‘t" (1.1.10-11). He then goes on to minimize his affection for his legitimate son, Edgar, by saying that he ". . . is no dearer in my account" (1.1.20-21). A father has two choices regarding a child conceived through an affair; he can either deny the child’s existence or accept the child into his family as one of his own. Gloucester lamely attempts both with Edmund. In addition, his comment about Edgar send a mixed message regarding the son he considers his heir. In the Olivier version of this play, the stage direction has Edmund standing nearby while Gloucester converses with Kent. When Gloucester speaks the words in 1.1.10-11, he throws his arm around Edmund’s shoulder and laughingly taps him on the chest. The stage direction here works well because the

Upon hearing this, Edmund presents himself as sympathetic and supportive towards Gloucester. After his father leaves, Edmund reveals to the reader his true intentions of betraying his father and taking his title. This abrupt transformation of attitude and objective is part of the theme of “Appearance vs Reality.” Although he appears to be loyal and innocent to Gloucester, the reality is that he is planning to overthrow Gloucester and is apathetic towards his

He seduces both Goneril and Regan, whom are arch-deceivers, causing them to become infatuated with him. This allows Edmund to rise to power and he manufactures jealousy between them, becoming a king in the process. Regan declares “Witness the world, that I create thee here, my lord and master”. Through manipulating attraction and identifying it as a weakness Edmund has taken power. The dramatic irony utilised by Shakespeare adds to the atmosphere of this scene, as it was Regan and Goneril who used false declarations of love to rise to power, and it was this very strategy is what led to their undoing. Edmund highlights the abhorrent truth that any showing of trust can be manipulated via deception for personal gain.

Later, Gloucester is willing to sacrifice his own life for the King Lear. This heroic behavior sets Gloucester apart from his youngest son, Edmund, who is merely an opportunist. Like Lear, Gloucester feels despair and questions a god, and like Lear, Gloucester finds his humanity in the midst of his tragedy. The blinded old man who asks that clothing be brought, so that Bedlam Tom might be covered, is a very different man from the Gloucester of Act I, who in the play's opening scene, bragged about Edmund's conception. Gloucester is filled with compassion for Poor Tom. This compassion for his fellow man indicates that Gloucester regrets the behavior of his past, as he seeks to make amends by sharing with those he never noticed before the recent events.

Hobbes’ description of this restless desire for power proves to be consistent with the actions that Regan and, especially, Goneril take throughout the play. Not satisfied with only the power that comes along with ruling a sector of the kingdom, Regan and Goneril each seek to win the heart of Edmund, the bastard of Gloucester who is granted the title of Earl of Gloucester following his betrayal of his father to Regan’s husband, the Duke of Cornwall. The desire to take Edmund’s hand in marriage, thereby claiming a stake in the land that Edmund governs, resulted from Edmund’s seduction of each of the two sisters as part of his own plot to eventually claim the entire kingdom of Britain for himself. Thus, a parallel occurs throughout the play as Goneril, Regan, and Edmund each seek the aggrandizement of their own power, as Hobbes claimed all humans desire, creating a twisted triangle of seduction and betrayal.

The name Julius Caesar makes people think of a lot of things. A kind and honest leader, “the unconquerable god”, leader of Rome, the man who was brutally stabbed and murdered. The name is fairly recognizable; Julius Caesar was one of Rome’s greatest leaders and also one of the world's greatest plays. In the play and in real life, he was great and kind to all citizens of Rome, either poor or rich. When Julius Caesar died, it was one of the most iconic deaths of all time and would be remembered for the ages to come. Though this begs the question, what are the differences from what happened in David White’s article, to the famous Shakespeare play? Is Caesar killed in the same manner, do they follow the same timeline, can we safely call the Shakespeare play creditable?

In Act 1 Scene 1 of ‘King Lear’, Gloucester first introduced Edmund to the audience as “the bastard” and also admits that he “so often blushed to acknowledge him that now [he] is brazed to it”, indicating the embarrassment that accompanies having a bastard as a son. In addition, “this knave came something saucily into the world he was sent for”, meaning that his did not have the right to bear any power or authority from the beginning of his life due to the fact that he was conceived by a prostitute. Although he did not have the right to be powerful nor authoritative, he was ambitious and devious; Shakespeare uses him as an example to show his audience how power can be obtained through manipulation without the help of having authority. Through Edmund’s soliloquy, he expresses his dissatisfaction with this low, “base” status as a bastard, whereby “base indicates the concept of degree. The repetition of the noun and the

This quote is additionally critical as it shows the extent he is will go to not be viewed as an illegitimate child and inconsequential. Which shows that Edmund fears the thought of conforming to his insignificant title and demonstrates his actual insatiable, remorseless and manipulative

Unlike King Lear, Edmund has no power at the beginning of the play. Being Gloucester’s youngest and illegitimate son he is not accepted by society or his father. Gloucester says in front of Edgar, “His breeding, sir, hath been at my charge / I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to it” (1.1.8-9).  Edgar, Edmund’s older brother will inherit their father's wealth, land, and title. Knowing this Edmund’s hunger for power has probably grown through the years, giving him the motivation to act the way he did. In 1.2 Edmund tells the audience that he’s going to con

Edmund’s frustration at the treatment of illegitimate children was present from the start of the play, as he exclaimed: “Why ‘bastard’?/ [..] When my mind as generous and my shape as true / As honest madam’s issue?” (I ii 6-7). He considered himself an

Like Lear, Gloucester fails to see the true nature of his children and also invokes the language of nature in blind ways. After wrongly condemning Edgar he calls Edmund a "loyal and natural boy" (II. i. 85).

In Act one, scene one, we are introduced to Gloucester and his parallel plot line before we introduced to Lear. We find Gloucester acknowledging his equal adoration between his two sons, the one legitimate, the other illegitimate. The moral code that informs King Lear dictates that illegitimacy bodes nothing but a disadvantage to the harmony of underlying order . Within the terms of the play, Gloucester's emotion is a fatal flaw of judgment. Paying close attention to language, Gloucester's unwitting mistake from Edmund's very first appearance; in a world where the only vocabulary of each character is a full expression of their position on the axis of good and evil, a reader cannot help but notice that Edmund's "... I shall study deserving..."(I.i.24) is a foreboding of the deceit and greed that will taint him for the rest of the play.

King Lear, written by William Shakespeare, has been known as the greatest, and most tragic, of Shakespeare’s plays. Social status plays a major role in the development of the play and even in Elizabethan/Jacobean England. King Lear could have been described as vain and foolish, a pathetic old man, incapable of controlling emotions, and rash in judgement. However, since he was established as King, people looked up to him regardless of his mental state. This is why as he grew older, he became insistent on maintaining social status. Edmund was Earl of Gloucester’s illegitimate son and Edgar was Gloucester’s legitimate heir. Because of Edmunds birth right, he was lower in social status than Edgar and didn’t receive the same treatment. He spent the entire play trying to climb up the social ladder. Social status is a rampant conflict throughout King Lear.

     As an example of one of the wholly evil characters in the play, we shall turn to the subplot of Edmund's betrayal of his father and brother.  Edmund has devised a scheme to discredit his brother, Edgar, in the eyes of their father, Gloucester.  Edmund is fully aware of the vileness of his own nature, and revels in it: