King Lear, By William Shakespeare

King Lear is a Christian Play About a Pagan World It is evident that King Lear contains references to both the Christian and Pagan doctrine. However, they seem to be expressed in entirely different styles. King Lear is purposefully set in a pre Christian era with numerous references to classical Gods but conversely there appears to be a striking resonance of Christian theology throughout the play. These echoes appear in various forms including the idea of Edgar being a Christ-like figure and also the presence of a supposed divine justice.

The concepts of nature, humanity, power and love lay as a foundation for Shakespeare’s, King Lear. These notions are examined through the actions and realizations of King Lear, himself. Throughout the discourse of this play we view the portrayal of humans as animals and witness King Lear’s mistreatment after he gives away his power. When doing so he makes clear his view on love and its value, solely based on the flattery of words.Through nature, King Lear becomes grounded and recognizes the animalistic behaviors of the rich and the struggles of the poor. This recognition brings him to an utmost discovery that presents the reality of vicious humanity and changes the way he views the world.

Shakespeare 's complex play Othello holds numerous pressing issues within its intricate layers that seem to leap out to modern society. One such issue seen by many is the representation of women. Women within the play can be characterized as submissive possessions and temptresses. This ideology, though commonplace in this time period, appears controversial to the modern eye as we deconstruct the characters of this play. This dominate patriarchal society present within the setting merely conditions this belief further as it is prevalent within the characters dialogue.

King Lear poses many questions to its audience. Shakespeare’s conventions throughout the story hold true to the plot until Albany’s speech is interrupted by Lear’s rambling words. Upon closer examination however, it is obvious that the play’s writer meant to violate some of the conventions which he set earlier in the story through the crazed king's words. The character’s verses can be interpreted several ways, showing a different side of the conventions which Shakespeare sets. Focusing on the particular scene shows an underlying theme concerning the human race. His writing leaves the audience with a question about the story’s true meaning.

Everyone has a quality that they do not like about themselves. Some people struggle to be social, others may be too controlling of people. The list goes on and on, but the point is that everybody has a particular quality that they must learn to control or else that particular quality can get out of hand. Of course, one could write a list of characters that have major flaws. There is no better example than William Shakespeare’s character, Macbeth, in The Tragedy of Macbeth. Anyone who has ever read it, could easily identify the fatal flaw that the character Macbeth possesses which is greed. Even though many readers can all agree that greed is Macbeth’s fatal flaw, the argument as to whether or not

William Shakespeare’s 16th century play Othello is a duplicitous and fraudulent tale set alternatingly between Venice in act 1, and the island of Cyprus thereafter. The play follows the scandalous marriage between protagonist Othello, a Christian moore and the general of the army of Venice, and Desdemona, a respected and intelligent woman who also happens to be the daughter of the Venetian Senator Brabantio. Shakespeare undoubtedly positions the marriage to be viewed as heroic and noble, despite Othello’s hamartia and subsequent downfall that inevitably occurs. Their marriage is then sabotaged by the jealous Iago, Othello’s ensign and villain of the play. While Iago’s ostensible justification for instigating Othello’s demise was his failure to acquire Othello’s position as lieutenant, Iago’s motives are rarely directly articulated and seem to derive from an obsessive, almost aesthetic pleasure in manipulation and destruction. Through the genre of the play, being a Shakespearean tragedy, and the structural devices employed by Shakespeare such as plot development, exposition, foreshadowing, dénouement, dramatic excitement, and catharsis, the key ideas of jealousy, appearance vs. reality and pride are developed and explored.

William Shakespeare’s Othello would not be a dramatic tragedy if the smiling villain, Iago, were a deaf mute. There is no doubt that the destruction of each character can be blamed on jealous Iago. The theme of jealousy helps propel the plot naturally and demonstrates the consequences of being morbidly jealous. The circumstantial evidence Iago provides acts like a lethal poison, which surrounds Othello in suspicion and envy but also turns him into an inhuman murderer. Jealousy is the ‘monster’ that unresonably conducts the great suffering in the story.

Often times we take our eye sight for granted. We never think about what would happen if we could not see and believe our eyes. There is an old saying that says, “Seeing is believing;” however, what we see is not always the truth. As we read King Lear it becomes clear that people can physically see events, believe that what is being seen is the truth, and be totally blinded to the truth. We choose to see what we want to believe because that is what we want to happen. Many times our emotions take over and what is right in front of our face is blinded by what we want the truth to be. There are several characters in King Lear who are blind to the truth, not because their eye sight is impaired but because they have selective sight and only see what they want to see. Sight or lack thereof, has many literary facets beyond the obvious physical meaning, as intricately portrayed in Shakespeare’s King Lear; where the ability to see the truth is clouded by mental blindness, love, greed, and ambition until a transformation occurs and the characters can truly see the truth.

Prophecies seem like things that are set in stone, a fate that is unavoidable; but most prophecies are true because of the actions of the receiver. Even though Macbeth was given these prophecies by the Witches, it is ultimately his own foolish and reckless actions and doings that cause these events, and eventually, his own downfall. In Shakespeare’s book, “Macbeth”, our main character Macbeth becomes King but is eventually dethroned by an array of prophecies and people. Through his own brutal actions and faults, he brings this fate upon himself, not the prophecies, as would be suggested.

In most Shakespearian tragedies, the hero possesses a character trait which under normal circumstances would be a virtue, but which under the special circumstances of the play proves to be a fatal flaw. Macbeth consists of several situations where the hero portrays many such qualities that drive him to commit wrong actions. Macbeth’s desires convinced him to ignore the impact of his actions. In addition, his doubtfulness controlled his consciousness and finally his blindness affected his aptitude to seek reality. An analysis of Macbeth’s actions and behaviour reveals that Macbeth should be justified as a tragic hero validating the belief that he possesses several fatal flaws which eventually resulted in his downfall.

Although set in the pre-Christian England, King Lear addresses the same anxieties and fears faced by the subsequent Protestants and a modern day audience may experience— a sense of desolation over the fear that God is hostile or indifferent. Although there are frequent references to pagan and Christian deities, gods in Lear’s England never manifest themselves, merely being a country where the human capacity for evil is very much in evidence. Throughout the play, calls for divine intervention appear to be like calls out to a void, for the gods are always silent or perhaps simply do not exist. Faith in the mercy of the gods, “The gods are just, and of our pleasane vices, make instruments to plague us” are turned to bitterness towards the end, evident when Gloucester laments “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods.

The characters in Shakespeare’s King Lear are represented as belonging to varying degrees of religious beliefs, from

Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear can be interpreted in many ways and many responses. The imprecision’s and complication of the play has led

King Lear is frequently regarded as one of Shakespeare’s masterpieces, and its tragic scope touches almost all facets of the human condition: from the familial tensions between parents and children to the immoral desires of power, from the follies of pride to the false projections of glory. However, one theme rings true throughout the play, and that very theme is boundless suffering, accentuated by the gruesome depictions of suffering our protagonists experience . There is no natural (nor “poetic”) justice depicted in this pre-Judeo-Christian world Shakespeare presents, as the relatively virtuous individuals (Kent, Gloucester, and Cordelia) in this

Lear's entry into the play is similar to Gloucester's such that, through close analysis of the dialogue between the King and his daughters, the reader gains awful knowledge of the arrogance and ignorance that will soon become his downfall . The drama of his opening speech is at all points excessive; the reader discerns a man that is long accustomed to being listened to and indulged in every way. In a moral