Macbeth And King Lear Research Paper

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Macbeth and King Lear are tragedies because one or more people die and the play usually has a sad ending. The tragedies are alike because multiple people die in each play. In Macbeth, Macdonwald, Duncan, the king’s two guards, Banquo, Lady Macduff and her family, and Young Siward are all killed. In King Lear, Cornwall, Oswald, Regan, Gloucester, Goneril, Edmund, Cordelia, Cordelia’s executioner, and King Lear all die. They are different because in Macbeth, he started off not evil, but then Lady Macbeth convinces him to kill Macdonwald, which causes him to keep on being evil and the 3 witches encourage him killing people, causing him to go crazy. In King Lear, he started off evil and always fishing for compliments, so when he asked for his three daughters to tell him how much they loved him and that would determine who gets how much when he dies. However, Cordelia ends up saying that she loves him as much as a daughter should love a father, no more and no less. She then says that she can’t devote all of her love to him because she will owe devotion to her husband when she gets married and can’t put all of her love to her father. He then banishes her and divides the kingdom into two for Regan and Goneril. So, really, he started off as evil in the play.

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