More handpicked essays just for you.
Comparing and contrasting king lear and gloucester
Difference between king lear and a thousand acres
Comparing and contrasting king lear and gloucester
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
While it may appear that Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres is nothing but a modernized interpretation of Shakespeare's King Lear, one can see that below the surface these two tales are anything but alike. Through Smiley's characters Larry, Caroline, Ginny and Rose, it is easy to conclude that they contrast their "parallels," Lear, Cordelia, Goneril and Rose, greatly from Shakespeare's play. Among the multiple themes that make this conclusion possible, the most prominent are the contrasting themes of relationships, outcomes, character development and motivations. At first, Shakespeare portrays King Lear as an arrogant man whose only concern is himself; Lear has no problem relishing in his title and power as ruler, but has trouble carrying out the responsibilities of a king and doing good for his people. With this mindset, Lear manages to …show more content…
Similar to Lear, Larry is an arrogant man who pays little mind to his daughter who fails to worship him like his other daughters do. While this is similar, the most important difference between these two characters is their change as a person throughout the story. While Lear grows, Larry back tracks. Not only does he continue to be self centered and outrageously rude, he fails to accept his flaws and wrongdoings and has no remorse whatsoever, "Daddy thinks history starts fresh everyday, every minute... That's how he keeps on betraying us, why he roars at us with such conviction" (Smiley 215). Larry is not able to reconcile his relationship with his daughters, like Lear did with Cordelia. Larry was not mentally well in the end, and he even believes one of his children died due to the sisters, "She's dead...Caroline! Caroline's dead! I think those sisters stole the body and buried her already" (Smiley 319). Larry pushes everyone away and remains the same throughout the entire novel, proving that these two characters are far from
Michael Vu Mrs. Soukup – Block 1 AP English Literature & Composition April 11th, 2014 2005, Form B AP Literature Essay for King Lear William Shakespeare devised Edmund as an ambitious character that seeks power over others within his tragedy King Lear. Tainted by his illegitimacy, Edmund must rise to power through his own capabilities and intellect rather than inheritance. However, his drive for power leads him toward corruption as he commits treachery to both his father and brother. Shakespeare demonstrates the problem society has with those who seek power as a means of retribution. Edmund believes in the idea of natural law as a way to attain power; in fact, the Nature to which Edmund is appealing is human nature, where desire is the driving force behind all action.
King Lear by William Shakespeare, and A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley are both fantastic tragedies that follow a similar story arc. Although King Lear was written in 1606, and A Thousand Acres was written in 1999, they contain the same essential elements of a tragedy. Jane Smiley modeled her novel after King Lear, focusing less on Lear’s story, and more on the daughters’ stories. The story-line of both is extremely similar: a father chooses to divide his land amongst his daughters, and everything following that is a disaster. King Lear and A Thousand Acres utilize the elements of unexpected suffering, suffering that extends beyond the protagonist, and society/status to mold their stories into classic tragedies.
In Shakespeare’s version, Lear is the head of the family. He is the one who makes the decisions and calls the shots. However, he also makes the foolish decision to relinquish his power to his daughters and their husbands. In this household, and the one present in Smiley’s adaption, Lear is the one who holds the power. Even though Goneril and Regan are married, Lear is still the one who is the head of the household. However, once he decides to let go of his power, he struggles to adjust to the shift in power. Smiley utilizes this same struggle in her own novel by having him sign away his farm to Ginny and Rose. This idea of a shift in power signals an end to his reign at the top of this patriarchy even though he still tries to hold onto his place by placing certain rules and expectations on his daughters. If he were to have had sons, they would have taken his throne. This underlying idea is present in both works. It is a comment to the undesirability to have daughters as they do not have much of a role to play. Larry does not speak about his daughters in a positive light. He refers to them as the “whores” that “had sent him out into the storms and that he wished he’d had son” (Smiley 195). Lear does not speak much better of them and calls them “pelican daughters” (Shakespeare 78). Pelican is referring to feeding on a parent’s blood. Lear specifically uses the word
Through Lear, Shakespeare expertly portrays the inevitability of human suffering. The “little nothings,” seemingly insignificant choices that Lear makes over the course of the play, inevitably evolve into unstoppable forces that change Lear’s life for the worse. He falls for Goneril’s and Regan’s flattery and his pride turns him away from Cordelia’s unembellished affection. He is constantly advised by Kent and the Fool to avoid such choices, but his stubborn hubris prevents him from seeing the wisdom hidden in the Fool’s words: “Prithee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to: he will not believe a fool” (Shakespeare 21). This leads to Lear’s eventual “unburdening,” as foreshadowed in Act I. This unburdening is exacerbated by his failure to recognize and learn from his initial mistakes until it is too late. Lear’s lack of recognition is, in part, explained by his belief in a predestined life controlled completely by the gods: “It is the stars, the stars above us govern our conditions” (Shakespeare 101). The elder characters in King Lear pin their various sufferings on the will of...
Lear becomes blinded by his flaws, leading him to make irrational decisions which ultimately cause him to go mad. After Cordelia is unable to state how much she loves her father and outdo her sisters exaggerated professions of
In King Lear by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare recounts the tragedy of King Lear as he fails to acknowledge his tragic flaw and thus falls into tragedy and unintentionally brings others with him. Throughout the play, tragedy befalls undeserving people and they suffer greatly even though they have not done anything to deserve their suffering. Although Gloucester, Edgar, and Cordelia all live happy lives at the beginning of the play, they experience great suffering despite their inner goodness, a fact that highlights Shakespeare’s belief about the blindness of a justice that does not necessarily strike only the wicked.
King Lear is a play about loyalty. "Goodness" is portrayed by the characters as selflessness. Each "good" character displays loyalty through selfless actions. Cordelia selflessly does not attempt to rob Lear of his wealth by flattering him. Even though she risks banishment, she selflessly refuses to indulge her father's foolish wishes. Edgar, too, is selfless in his actions by leading his father to safety even when he knows Gloucester does not recognize him and will not appreciate that he was, in fact, the truly loyal son. Finally, Kent, Lear's Selfless servant, risks his life to protect his king even after he has been mistreated.
King Lear is often regarded as one of Shakespeare’s finest pieces of literature. One reason this is true is because Shakespeare singlehandedly shows the reader what the human condition looks like as the play unfolds. Shakespeare lets the reader watch this develop in Lear’s own decisions and search for the purpose of life while unable to escape his solitude and ultimately his own death. Examining the philosophies Shakespeare embeds into the language and actions of King Lear allows the reader a better understanding of the play and why the play is important to life today.
When Jane Smiley wrote A Thousand Acres, she consciously made the story parallel to Shakespeare's King Lear for several reasons. The novel's characters and basic storyline are almost direct parallels to King Lear, but Smiley's dissatisfaction with the traditional interpretation of King Lear is showcased in her modern day version (Berne 236).
King Lear by Shakespeare portrayed the negative effects of power resulting in destruction caused by the children of a figure with authority. Through lies and continual hatred, characters maintained a greed for power causing destruction within their families. The daughter’s of Lear and the son Gloucester lied to inherit power for themselves. Edmund the son of Gloucester planned to eliminate his brother Edgar from his inheritance.
This new Lear is certainly a far cry from the arrogant king we saw at the beginning of the play. Shakespeare has transformed Lear from an ignorant old king into some sort of god, using a seven stage process: resentment, regret, recognition, acceptance and admittance, guilt, redemption, and optimism. Lear’s transformation can be simply described as a transition from blindness into sight, he did not see the value in listening to others, but in the end he gained a sense of optimism and idealism. There is no doubting that Shakespeare has portrayed Lear as a flawed figure, who, through his misfortune and suffering, goes from a contemptuous human being to one who has been purified into an omniscient, godly type character, proving that ignorant people can truly change to become caring individuals.
King Lear gives the reader a bleak and lonely impression. People suffer unjustly and are killed by heartbreak. Albany points out that if left alone by the gods, "Humanity must perforce prey on itself / like monsters of the deep," expressing that justice and humanity do not house comfortably together. And how can there be meaning or purpose in life if there is no justice? Lear himself alludes poetically to this when upon Cordelia's death he asks, "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life / And thou no breath at all?" He also realizes that "I am a man more sinned against than sinning" when it is made obvious that the punishment for his mistake in scene one is harsher than it should be, making it unjust...
The first flaw in King Lear is his arrogance, which results in the loss of Cordelia and Kent. It is his arrogance in the first scene of the play that causes him to make bad decisions. He expects his favorite, youngest daughter to be the most worthy of his love. His pride makes him expect that Cordelia’s speech to be the one filled with the most love. Unfortunately for King Lear’s pride, Cordelia replies to his inquisition by saying, “I love your majesty/According to my bond and nothing less';(1.1.100-101). Out of pride and anger, Lear banishes Cordelia and splits the kingdom in half to the two evil sisters, Goneril and Regan. This tragic flaw prevents King Lear from seeing the truth because his arrogance overrides his judgement. Lear’s arrogance also causes him to lose his most faithful servan...
Overall, while King Lear is able to fit many of the criteria of a tragic figure, such as being arrogant and noble, and also being responsible for his own downfall that leads to his own catastrophic end, he does not execute being a tragic figure well as he is missing the ability to draw pity from those following his story. Through Lear’s careless distribution of land, and the disowning and disrespect of Cordelia, Kent and the fool and the fact that he never understands and is remorseful for the tragedies that he caused, he is unable to become the true tragic figure he could have been. If King Lear had been able to make a change along the way and think about his actions and treatments of people, he would have been able to cause people to feel pity for him, which would have made him William Shakespeare’s greatest tragic figure.