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Analysis of the tragedy of King Lear
Analysis of the tragedy of King Lear
Analysis of the tragedy of King Lear
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The Sin of Pride Exposed in King Lear, and The Duchess of Malfi
In this brief monograph, we shall be hunting down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/Renaissance thought. Among these are the fierce lion of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of fantastic peacocks, one of vanity, one of preening social status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as pride, while the lamb is of an entirely different, in fact antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from palace to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the perfumed lady's chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick.
The tragic hero of Shakespeare's King Lear is brought down, like all tragic heroes, by one fatal flaw, in this case pride, as well as pride's sister, folly. It is the King's egotistical demand for total love and, what's more, protestations of such from the daughter who loves him most, that set the stage for his downfall, as well as calling to the minds of the Elizabethan audience of Shakespeare's day the above-cited biblical edict. This daughter, Cordelia, can be seen as the humble lamb mentioned earlier, and her love and filial devotion go not only beyond that of her sisters (which is nil) but beyond words, thus enraging the proud king whose subsequent petulant rebukes extend to a bit of ironic Freudian projection: "Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her" (I.i.125). Here, Shakespeare is emphasizing Lear's pride by having him indulge in the common tendency of despising in others (and in this case wrongly) what one is most guilty of oneself. Lear's rash pride ...
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...in which it is supposed to have been written for a certain Lady Haughty, a name indicative of not a little touch of pride, pardon my litotes.
So, to sum up, we have captured, examined, and tagged our various creatures of pride, and it is now time to set them free once more, to run wild over the four corners of the earth. The lions will devour all in their path with arrogant derision; the peacocks will peck and claw at one another as they jockey for position in their petty social circles, all the while pouting and preening, painting feathers on their feathers; and the lambs will go on being slaughtered in their docility, uttering never a scornful word, so that we may have lamb chops with mint jelly at Ruth's Chris with our beautiful, precisely made-up girl friends.
"Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall."
Proverbs 16:18
Thou shall honour thy father and thy mother, is not only one of ten powerful commandments but is also the foundation for King Lear's perception of himself and his overwhelming situation in Shakespeare's masterpiece King Lear. After a recent life-altering decision, Lear's seemingly stable and comfortable world has been thrown into upheaval through the disobedience and lies told by not only his two daughters but also by his servants! Thus, after being dishonoured by his family and attendants, Lear forms an accurate perception of his situation, that he is "a man / More sinned against than sinning" (Act III scene ii lines 60 - 61). To begin, Lear's two eldest daughters dishonour him on several occasions. The first of three situations involves Goneril, the eldest.
Ruskin, John. “Grotesque Renaissance.” The Stones of Venice: The Fall. 1853. New York: Garland Publishing, 1979. 112-65. Rpt. in Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. Ed. Jelena O. Krstovic. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale Research Company, 1989. 21-2.
With Cordelia declared as banished, Lear states, “With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third...Only we shall retain The name and all th’ addition to a king. The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours” (Shakespeare 17). Lear’s fault here is that he believes that he can divide up his kingdom to his daughters and still retain the title as king; he wants to retire his position and responsibilities as a king but still remain respected and treated as one. His flaw in wanting to be superior leads to his downfall, as he is so blinded by his greed that he decides to divide up his kingdom to his two daughters who are as hungry for power as he is. They only want to strip him of his position and respect to gain more influence. Lear, not realizing the impact of such an impulsive decision, descends into madness when his daughters force him out of his home. After being locked out of his only shelter by his daughters, he states, “Filial ingratitude!...In such a night To shut me out?...O Regan, Goneril, Your old kind father whose frank heart gave all! O that way madness lies. Let me shun that; No more of that” (Shakespeare 137). Lear becomes fully aware of the consequences of his actions. He realizes how ungrateful his daughters are and how they have treated him unfairly even though he has given them everything; much to his dismay, he is left with
Much to the same effect, the Earl of Gloucester blames nature for things that go wrong early on in the play, and refuses to see things for what they truly are. This leads him to disown his true, loving son and ends up causing his downfall as his illegitimate son takes everything from him. Gloucester eventually realizes the mistake in what he has done, with just enough time left to salvage his relationship with his loving son before he dies. His tragic flaw, much like Lear, is excessive pride, or “hubris”. This is shown when he believes his son, Edgar is trying to kill him. If he knew much about Edgar, he would know that Edgar would not ever do such a thing, but he chooses to believe his other son, Edmund. Instead of questioning his role in
King Lear's hot temper and hasty decisions play a significant role in his fall from grace. His old age has caused him to behave impulsively, without any consideration for the consequences of his actions. When Lear asks his devoted daughter Cordelia to express her love for him, he becomes upset with her because she cannot put her feelings into words. He does not realize that she cares deeply for him and disowns her by saying, "Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee from this for ever (1.1.120-123)." It is only later, when Cordelia has left him, that Lear realizes he had made a wrong decision. In another fit of rage, Lear ...
Lear is a character that is labelled as rash and impulsive due to actions to banish his truthful daughter, Cordelia, and giving all he owns to her materialistic sisters, Goneril and Regan. To begin with, Lear initially asks his daughters “Which of us shall we say doth love us most?” (1.1.52) in order to divide up his wealth and kingdom amongst them. This shows Lear’s insecurity toward others feeling towards him and that he needs to be constantly reminded of his power and status. This is a weakness that Goneril and Regan are able to use to their advantage by flattering lies and untruthful feelings in attempt to attain a larger portion of the kingdom, which in turn means they would be more powerful. Cordelia, on the other hand, is not able to “heave [her] heart into [her] mouth” (1.1.94) like her sisters are doing. She is completely honest and truthful with her father which in turn does not please him. Moreover, by exploiting Lear’s weakness, Goneril and Regan are able to manipulate Lear into believing the flattery and fake feelings they express towards him. Therefore, when he is struck with Cordelia’s answer of “Nothing, my lord” (1.1.89), he acts impulsively by disowning and banish...
2016, p. 48), as they lack logical thinking children develop the ability to assume imaginary roles that differ from reality (Lilienfeld et al. 2015, p. 410). Despite the advancements in thinking that take place, Piaget believed that children lacked the ability to understand a situation from another person’s point of view and defined egocentrism as a key aspect of this stage (McLeod, 2009).
The tragedy of Shakespeare’s King Lear is made far more tragic and painful by the presence and suffering of the king's youngest daughter, Cordelia. While our sympathy for the king is somewhat restrained by his brutal cruelty towards others, there is nothing to dampen our emotional response to Cordelia's suffering. Nothing, that is, at first glance. Harley Granville-Barker justifies her irreconcilable fate thus: "the tragic truth about life to the Shakespeare that wrote King Lear... includes its capricious cruelty. And what meeter sacrifice to this than Cordelia?"5 Yet in another passage Granville-Barker has come much closer to touching on the real explanation. I quote the passage at length.
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 plot unfolds, the actions of the aforementioned characters get progressively more desperate and destructive as they realize their lack of success in attaining their personal goals. The goals vary, however the selfish motivation does not. With Edmund, Goneril, Reagan and Cornwall as examples, Shakespeare portrays the social hierarchy as a self-defeating system because it fosters desires in its members that motivate them to act against the authority of the hierarchy to benefit themselves. A consideration of each characters actions in chronological order and the reasons behind such actions reveals a common theme among the goals for which morality is abandoned.
When one examines the words “pride” and “self-respect”, it is possible one may assume that the two are identical in meaning. That the words go hand in hand like butter and bread. For quite some time I was pondering on the meaning of the two words “pride” and “self-respect”. The more consideration I put into the two the deeper I was in a maze of confusion. After a long thought on the subject I had come to my own conclusion.
Shakespeare uses subplots to dramatize the action of the play and give spark on the contrast for the themes in King Lear. Sub plots usually improve the effect of dramatic irony and suspense. The latter, which is used in King Lear, gives us the understanding of the emotions of the characters in the play. This follows the parallelism between Gloucester and King Lear.
1. King Lear commands his daughters to profess their love for him, illustrating that Lear is selfish and foolish. Cordelia, King Lear’s daughter, refused to give a speech about how much she loves him, resulting in a loss of a dowry. She loves her father the way a daughter should and believes that words cannot express love. Cordelia’s morals keep her from expressing insincere praise in order to receive a portion of Lear’s kingdom, revealing that Cordelia is honest and virtuous. Cordelia mentions that her father “begot”, “bred”, and “loved” her, actions that King Lear took to raise her, and she plans to take care of him the way he did. She feels that flattering her father is unnecessary because no description can describe the love and care that
They have proposed the option to do recalls that have been rejected on several different levels. California Air Resources Board did not accept Volkswagen’s plan to repair the vehicles. (Ramsey, 2015) California researched the plan and determined it was not cohesive enough nor did it have the necessary detailed to be put into place. Again, credibility comes into question; the employees were deceptive when encrypting the “defeat” code. The United States Environmental Protection Agency also agreed with California Air Resources Board that Volkswagen had not submitted an approvable recall plan to bring the vehicles into compliance and reduce pollution the structure of the recall plan is still being worked on by CARB and the EPA. (EPA,
From the banishment of Kent and Cordelia till his death King Lear in William Shakespeare's play The Tragedy of King Lear is blind to the signs of loyalty. In the play, Lear has decided to step down from his throne and evenly distribute his kingdom to his three daughters : Goneril, Cordelia, and Regan. However, each of them must proclaim their love for him first, Goneril and Regan easily win Lear over by flattering and praising him. On the other hand Cordelia, Lear’s favorite, who truly loves him is left with a loss for words and he sees this lack of response as a sign of disrespect. His lack of judgment for her and others true loyalty leads to great torment throughout the development of the play. The recurring theme of loyalty in all aspects of the play is portrayed upon the characters of Kent, Cordelia and the Fool.
When an individual acquires information it is processed into the memory system and must be manipulated into a form the system is capable of understanding in order for storage to take place. This information is then stored in the long term or episodic memory and is known as encoding (Baddeley, 1975). There are three ways in which information may be encoded; visual (imagery), acoustic (sound) and semantic (meaning) (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974). Acoustic coding is suggested to be the main or principle coding system concerning short-term memory (STM). If someone were to be presented with a list stating various letters or numbers, the information will be held in the STM, which would occur through rehearsal. This is a verbal process irrespective of whether the items are represented acoustically (being read out), or visually (on a piece of paper). The dominant encoding system involved in the long-term memory (LTM) however, is suggested to be semantic coding (Baddeley, 1975). Information in the LTM may be encoded visually as well as acoustically.