Lear and Family Essay

After King Lear’s two oldest daughters, Goneril and Regan express their love for their father in a flattering speech they were granted their share of the kingdom, and Cordelia his youngest daughter and favorite daughter refused to play along, Lear felts she was disrespectful and she was banished from his sight. Cordelia bids farewell to her sisters, and tells them that she knows they don’t love him, “I know you what you are, and like a sister am most loath to call your faults as they are named.” (1.2.273-275). “Time shall unfold what plighted cunning hides; who covers faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper!” (1.2.284-286). Once Cordelia left, Goneril and Regan revealed to the audience that they had no love for their father.

The power that Lear gives to Goneril and Regan makes them treacherous and deceitful. Lear offers his

There will always be disagreements and arguments which may end in haste, creating tension between the rulers. Also, the pieces of land will eventually have to be divided again as generations pass, which allows for easy attacks. Although Lear may feel he had a good reason to divide his land, there really is no rational reason for his action. He only divided his land so he could be showered with loving words from his daughters. His desire to fuel his ego by abdicating his throne and using his property as a reward eventually causes him to lose everything, including his family.

In this soliloquy, the audience gets its first glimpse of the character of Goneril. The full spectrum of her greed and selfishness will not be revealed until later, but this is certainly a good sample of her personality. Her profession of love is so large that it seems almost artificial, and it also seems motivated by the fact that possession of land is involved. Still, Lear seems immensely pleased by her statement, and requests a similar profession of love from his other daughter, Regan. She obliges, and in her declaration she tells her father that she loves him even more than Goneril does. Regan emerges from her

His attempt to seize the throne leads to the loss of his sanity. Before he is about

Lear cannot deny his ultimate role as the king. He desires to maintain his name and his rights as king, but to give control of the kingdom to his daughters and their husbands. However, this cannot work: "We know immediately that he is doomed to painful disillusionment by his assumption that his identity as king, father, and man, being fixed in the macrocosmic scheme of things, must remain unshaken without its worldly supports" (Egan 32). So, King Lear's exercising of this nonexistent power establishes his tragic flaw and the problem of the play: the power of the kingdom must reside in Lear only.

King Lear is understandably one of William Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, it encompasses the journey through suffering and explores, in detail, the idea of justice. Each character in the play experience s one or the other throughout the progression of the plot, it is evident that through compositional features such as these, the play write is trying to convey this meaning. Through methods such as intense imagery, motifs, repetition of words and rhyming the play write has given intensity to certain passages, speeches and conversations. Shakespeare, through the use of character development, unravels the way in which humanity responds to injustice, the character relationships, specifically character foils, give rise to a number of notions

he is estranged from himself. To help expand on this theme it is useful to look

with the murder and how he still has "work" ahead of him to keep the kingship. It also shows through

proposes only half of that Lear is agrees. Knowing he would do this they keep emphasizing that followers and unnecessary

The entire play is built around one man’s laziness. As the play commences one may question why Lear would decide to prematurely give up his kingdom. It is quite possible that he transferred his authorities before it was

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

The hatred he received after using black magic to create hailstorms and destroy a house led him to change. Receiving payback from his horrible aunt and uncle did not seem to be the right choice for him after he committed the acts. However, leading a peaceful life that

The remainders of Act I and Act II in Eyre’s film focus on the conflict between Lear and his two daughters, Goneril and Regan. Goneril and Regan begin looking down on their father and take away more of his privileges every chance that they get. They reduce Lear’s hundred knights down to fifty. Goneril and Regan’s tone of voice when arguing with Lear about reducing his number of knights down is vehement. Goneril complains about how the palace seems more like a tavern because of Lear’s knights’ demeanor, her voice quivers slightly, making it seem like she doesn’t want to have to argue with her father, in the play this change of tone is absent. This suggests that although Goneril cares more about the way others see her and material objects than the safety of her father. Both Shakespeare and Eyre emphasize the consequences of Lear’s choice to give up his power and give it to his two eldest daughters, Regan and Goneril.

In the beginning, the audience may feel alienated towards him because of his harsh and selfish treatment of Cordelia, his youngest daughter. But as the story unfolds, they pity and sympathize with that powerful king who has started his journey of suffering and powerlessness because of Gonoril and Regan’s masked love towards him. In “Madness and Memory”, Mazzaro says that later on the heath, Lear indicates that his madness lies in recalling his injuries done on him by Goneril and Regan (110). His sanity is questioned by Gonoril and Regan who refer to his age as a reason for his inconsistency, but they also acknowledge the fact of his lack of awareness throughout his life. Regan