Shakespeare and Company

For my play analysis I chose to read King Lear by William Shakespeare. I very much enjoy the works of Shakespeare and I thoroughly enjoyed this work. In the beginning of the play you learn that the king of Britain, King Lear, wants to step down from his throne. He has three daughters that he wants to split the kingdom with. He tests his daughters to see if they are worthy of the kingdom. He asks them to tell him how much they love him. Two of his daughters Goneril and Regan praise him and tell him

In King Lear, Shakespeare portrays a society whose emphasis on social class results in a strict social hierarchy fueled by the unceasing desire to improve one’s social status. It is this desire for improved social status that led to the unintentional deterioration of the social hierarchy in King Lear. This desire becomes so great that Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall were willing to act contrary to the authority of the social hierarchy for the betterment of their own position within it. As the

In King Lear, blindness is more than just the lack of physical sight, but a lack of judgement and understanding of others’ true intentions. Much of the suffering in King Lear stems from impetuous decisions and beliefs. Both King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester were blinded in their own respective ways. Lear’s blindness was more moral, leading to poor decisions that led to suffering, while Gloucester’s blindness was ignorance to his sons’ true intentions, leading to suffering as well. King Lear’s

A prominent theme of King Lear that is widely discussed in typical analyses is the theme of finding wisdom amongst madness and clarity amongst blindness. These themes focus heavily on Lear and Gloucester: Lear becomes wise once he begins to go mad, and Gloucester gains insight once he becomes blind. This theme, though considerably more obscure, is also present between Edmund and Edgar. Both characters start the play in a state of blindness and have a moment of clarity once their lives are drastically

The concept of madness and those who suffer from its hold is something that is apparent in both Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear, both plays treat madness in similar ways - it is often not understood by the characters, it is often feminized and there are characters who choose to assume madness for their own specific reasons. Another similarity is that both plays have two central characters that suffer from madness, each has one character whose madness is real and each has a character whose madness

Nobody is capable of changing the past. A person’s mistakes and the pain that they inflict on other people are permanent and irreversible. The potential to repair the damage lies by changing the future, not the past. Many characters in William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, realize their mistakes by suffering, and attempt to correct them through good deeds. Lear’s experience with poverty helps him recognize his misconception of love and accept Cordelia’s forgiveness. Gloucester’s loss of sight

Although it is never too late to learn, those lessons learned in old age are the most difficult and the most costly. In his play KING LEAR, Shakespeare illustrates that wisdom does not necessarily come with age. The mistakes that Lear and Gloucester make leave them vulnerable to disappointment and suffering at a time in their lives when both should be enjoying peace and contentment. Although both Lear and Gloucester achieve wisdom before they die, they pay a dear price for having lived life blindly

Discussion Write Up Day one of our discussion brought up the catharsis in King Lear (#4). I agreed that with Gloucester’s death there was not so much catharsis as there was sympathy and happiness. As readers, I think we were happier to see Gloucester put out of his misery “Pluck out his poor eyes” (3.7.58) and relieved at the fact that he died “smilingly” (5.3.201). I agreed that we readers were happy about Edgar’s ending since he had so much bad fortune throughout the play he deserved a break,

The Tragedy of King Lear: William Shakespeare, a playwright of the 1600 's, has been well known for writing many plays and poems. His play titled The Tragedy of King Lear is remembered globally and is learned in many schools today. A continuous theme in King Lear is a disguise, which consists of many different forms. There are physical, manipulative, and figurative disguises. In the beginning of the play, characters already fall into this category. In the first act, King Lear is at old age and

Cinderella in a Black Dress Goneril is not one of the evil stepsisters from Cinderella. Her many faces, in fact, stem from the same source and are not as different as one may conceive. The truth lies in one of her lines in Act 1, Scene 1. “There is further compliment of leave-taking between France and him [Lear]. Pray you let’s hit together. If our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last surrender of his will but offend us” (I, i, 331-4). The statement can be viewed as