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The Road Not Taken By William Shakespeare

Good Essays

“When we travel, we often focus on our destination at a cost of other aspects of the journey” is a statement which can be related to almost any journey whether it be physical, imaginative or emotional. King Lear is a text (play), written by William Shakespeare, that relates to the statement, as most of the characters within the play go on their own separate journeys. These journeys result in the severance of many relationships between characters, such as Edgar and Edmund, and affect the aspects of their lives that they did not consider. This is similar to The Road Not Taken which is a poem, written by Robert Frost, that speaks in a metaphorical way to symbolise journey. Within the poem Frost speaks of the difficulties on choosing which ‘path‘ to take due to their deceiving appearance and nature. Both these texts portray the statement through a wide array of techniques, such as symbolism, hamartia, and personification.

King Lear is a text which has parallel narratives, the first following King Lear’s family, and the second following Lord Gloucester’s family. The King himself goes on a significant emotional and imaginative journey, which shapes his identity at the end of the play. Lear’s emotional journey starts at the very start of the play when he asks his daughters to praise and tell him how much they love him. He soon faces the troubling task of dealing with his two eldest daughter’s, Goneril and Regan, betrayal, due to his own naive desire to receive baseless praise. It

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