King Lear

King Lear Assignment

1. Betrayal, Reconciliation, Authority versus Chaos, and Justice are different issues or themes that Shakespeare presents to his audience and asks them to battle and wrestle against. The first issue is the betrayal of the king and of Gloucester, and the reconciliation between them and their loved ones in the end, and the authority versus the chaos in the city on England and finally the Justice issue in which both the bodies of the good and the bad lay next to the each other in the end of the play.

2. Shakespeare implies a parallel between the two themes of Blindness and Madness. The two characters who suffer the most in the play are Lear and Gloucester. Their stories are similar in many ways; however, while Lear slowly goes mad, Gloucester is blinded but remains sane. Lear and Gloucester both seem to be able to perceive certain things more clearly after they lose their faculties. Lear realizes only as he begins to go mad that Cordelia loves him and that Goneril and Regan are flatterers. He comes to understand the weakness of human nature at the same time when Gloucester comes to understand which son is really good and which is bad at the very moment of his blinding.

3. Betrayals play an important role in the play and show the workings of wickedness in both the familial and political realms. Brothers betray brothers and children betray fathers. Goneril and Regan’s betrayal of Lear raises them to power in Britain, where Edmund, who has betrayed both Edgar and Gloucester, joins them. Also Reconciliation has an important role between Lear and Cordelia as a dramatic personification of true, self-sacrificing love. Rather than hating Lear for banishing her, Cordelia remains devoted to her king and father who meanwhile, learns a cruel lesson in humility and eventually reaches the point where he can reunite joyfully with Cordelia. These two issues of betrayal and Reconciliation have a clear relevance to our world today where there are lots of betrayals and reconciliations between families.

4. King Lear wanted to divide the kingdom among his three daughters. He intended to give up the responsibilities of government and spend his old age visiting his children. He commanded his daughters to say which of them loved him the most, and promised to give the greatest share to that daughter. Lear’s two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, responded to his test, telling him in exaggerated terms that they loved him more than anything else.