Analysis Of Edward Bond's 'Lear'

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Edward Bond’s ‘Lear’ offers an alternative perspective on a celebrated Shakespearean play as an interaction between the complex mechanisms of social forces and power relations in a highly politicized and contemporary version of “King Lear”. As a product of the post-Second World War era, Bond’s warfront experiences and his exposure to the monstrosity of state sponsored violence, played a pivotal role in the shaping of his political mind. Lear in Bond’s play is essentially a despot. The supreme authority over a people; controlling the forces of life, livelihood and labour. Unlike its Shakespearean counterpart, Bond’s remodelled version of the original focuses …show more content…

While Foucault is of the opinion that ‘Biopolitics’ is essentially about good governance, Giorgio Agamben disagrees and shows how ‘Biopolitics’ can lead to ‘Thanatopolitics’ or the power of deciding who should live or who should die in a given society. This article also explores the same through a reading of …show more content…

It introduces us to his thoughts on humanity and the need to keep changing for the better so as to create a sound society. The idea of humanness or the notion of being a sensible human being is at the heart of his philosophy of life. We are living in a time and an age when these very notions of humanness and humanity have become problematic. Whether it is political, social, technological or nuclear warfare, men in our society are living under its shadow. Therefore, the boundaries separating altruism and animalism, good and evil, life and death have blurred. It is a life-in-death scenario.Thus, Bond in his preface to “Lear” opines,In the modern nation states, these threats have undoubtedly attained mammoth proportions. Advanced scientific and technical knowledge has rendered them all the more powerful. Every nation state istrying to attain a ‘superpower’ status. All they are after is more territorial, political and military power. They are implementing elaborate strategies to obtain optimum services from its people, thus rendering man’s existence as living, breathing human beings perilous. These are some of the issues that are relevant to Bond’s play. He dexterously situates Lear into his modern narrative as a dictator like figure

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