A challenge is like a change; it is inevitable. Each person should encounter at least once during his/her life. It is rarely known that each challenge carries with it a good result. Shakespeare and Albom have proved this in their works.
Tuesdays with Morrie is a script that forms part of the works of Mitch Albom, a former University graduate. Mitch Albom is the narrator of the book. In his story, Albom focuses on Morrie Schwartz, a character who stands out as his former preferred professor and friend at the University.
Albom pictures this character as one who has gone through a lot of suffering before achieving his title as professor of sociology. He is viewed as a man of wisdom, owing to the lessons he has learned from his sufferings since childhood, which he, in turn, teaches Albom.
King Lear, on the other hand, is a William Shakespeare’s book that focuses much on Lear, the aging king of England. Lear plans to partition his kingdom to each of his three daughters. He undergoes a lot of disgrace and an overall loss of his power as a result.
Shakespeare pictures Lear as one who has encountered a good deal of embarrassment and betrayals, a process that makes him gain true wisdom. Though Morrie and Lear go through different suffering processes, they both die as wise men as expounded below.
Comparing
Lear stands out as a king in Shakespeare’s book. He ought to be happy and satisfied with life, but this is not the case. He is in a serous problem that he wants to solve.
He associates this problem with his ‘being a king’ where he believes that by dividing this kingdom among his three daughters, he will have gotten rid of much of this trouble. The king says, “Meantime we shall express our darker purpose. Give me the map there. Know that we have divided.
In three our kingdom; and ‘it’s our fast intent. To shake all cares and business from our age conferring them on younger strengths, while we unburdened crawl…” (Shakespeare 38-50). This depicts the kind of problem he is experiencing and his plan to end it.
Morrie, the professor, ought to, be happy as well but again his words portray some problem. He is not as happy as one can imagine.
Similarly, in his dialogue with Albom, Morrie reveals the problem he has with the prevailing culture. He says, “The culture we have does not make people feel good about them. And you have to be strong enough to say if the culture doesn’t work, don’t buy it” (Albom 42).
This makes it clear that the two are suffering. The two share a common need of love as the following paragraph explains.
When Lear wants to divide his kingdom to his three daughters, the only question he asks them is based on love. He has lived to see people suffer due to the lack of love. When he turns insane due to family conflicts with his daughters, he encounters loyal Gloucester, who helps him out of love.
He is yearning for this need. “Tell me, my daughters, since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state, which of you shall we say doth love us most…which of you shall say you love me most?” (Shakespeare 50-55). This is no more than a hunger for love.
Morrie’s conversation with Albom pictures the same desire of love. Morrie posits, “Love each other or die” (Albom 163). This shows the basic cause of the two characters’ agonies is lack of love.
While the king desires love from his daughters, Morrie recalls his childhood life when his poor father could not provide for him and how nobody could show him tokens of love by helping him, and this is why he has learned to love. He says, “Love Wins. Love always wins” (Albom 40).
He believes that this is the basis of all the needs. Nevertheless, the two characters differ to some extent as the next paragraph clarifies.
Contrasting
Morrie’s dialogue with Albom depicts him as a man of dignity. He is more than a parent following the pieces of advice he gives Albom. He is more than a gentle person driven by love.
According to him, he believes that when one wrongs you, the best and worth taking the step is just to forgive, rather than revenge. He posits, “We…need to forgive ourselves…For all the things we didn’t do. All the things we should have done.
You can’t get stuck on the regrets of what should have happened” (Albom 166). He implies that there cannot be a good reason for a fight because where there is forgiveness, there cannot be a fight.
He sees no valid reason for questioning the mistreatment he got when he was a child. According to him, these were only meant to instill his present wisdom.
On the contrary, the king is very reactive when wronged. He even severely canes those who do him wrong. He knows not how to forgive. “…and Lear hits Oswald in the rage” (Shakespeare 87-104).
Here the king is in a serious fight and fact he angrily asks, “Dost thou call me to fool, boy?” to which the Fool, always wiser than he appears, replies, “All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou were born with” (Shakespeare 164-165).
This shows how he is unable to forgive unlike his counterpart Morrie. All these encounters finally teach him. “The Fool teaches Lear several riddles” (Shakespeare 8-52). This shows how he gained his wisdom.
Conclusion
Though Lear acquires wisdom through in his old age sufferings as discussed above, Morrie acquires his through childhood sufferings. These two different experiences are quite relevant today.
Shakespeare and Albom are trying to teach the world that in every challenge, there exist corresponding good results. In other words, it is a lesson to be learned that wisdom, among other attributes, do not come freely. They have to be sought with a lot of struggles.
Written by William Shakespeare, King Lear is must-read attractive work that features the old King Lear whose role well develops the play’s main theme of tragedy. Bad luck is clear in the story through the inconsistent relationship between King Lear and his daughters as well as from the role of dishonesty and power in the play.
Heartbreaking consequences arise after King Lear’s move to divide his property between his two daughters, excluding Cordelia (Shakespeare 153). King Lear’s pride hinders him from knowing the truth about his daughters, especially Cordelia who truly loves him. The basis of the play on the Lear of Britain helps in depicting how young people rise where the old ones fall.
The Young rise where the Old fall
In Act one, King Lear states his resolution to confer power and kingship to young people. He decides to shake off all his burdens, cares, and businesses of kingship to the energetic young generation so that he can retire peacefully. King Lear is of age to retire as he has reigned over a long period. However, he faces the start of his downfall when he decides to retire and give a portion of his country to the daughter who professes best her love for him.
Due to his pride, Lear blindly divides his estate between Goneril and Regan, who only sweet-talk him, while leaving out Cordelia. This situation shows that his daughters (the young) will only rise in power and wealth upon the falling of the old King Lear.
In addition, Act 3 depicts the conflict between the young and the old generation based on the claims that foolish and old people such as King Lear do not deserve any power (Tweg 35) with reference to his two daughters, Goneril and Regan, after their success in inheriting their father’s fortunes. Through this scenario, the two daughters show the shift and rise in power from the old to the young generation.
Although King Lear’s old age does not allow him to undertake responsibilities, he feels that it will make him vulnerable. However, his daughters are happy to treat their powerless father like a baby, thus embarrassing him to show how youngsters rise when the old fall.
Edmund visualizes the conflict with his father as a generational conflict between the young and old (Shakespeare 135) because of his father’s support of King Lear even when he is against Cornwall’s wishes. The result is a social problem where few old men are in charge of power and wealth while many young people possess nothing. As a result, young people develop bitterness.
They yearn to rise when the old folks fall regardless of the means. Furthermore, the various themes portrayed in the play provide evidence of how youngsters take up the positions of the old once they fall.
For instance, the conflicts between a father and Gloucester’s sons as well as Lear’s daughters show generational differences (Tweg 30). The younger generation manipulates the older one, thus rising in wealth and power while the older counterparts are often unaware.
Conclusion
In my opinion, the play clearly depicts how young people replace the old once the latter category falls as evidenced by the various themes and symbolism in the play, King Lear.
Despite the challenges that the old folk face in relinquishing power to the young, it is obvious from the daily routine that young people only rise in wealth and power when the old ones fall. They are strong, unlike the helpless old generation. King Lear’s fall from power and the inheritance of his country by his daughters form the main basis for the discussion.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. King Lear, Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes Publishers, 1990. Print.
Tweg, Sue. William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Wellington: Insight Publications, 2011. Print.
Despair of overwhelming depth is expected, inherent even, in these two texts by William Shakespeare and John Milton. Upon reading King Lear one notes the harrowing grief of the spurned King, that his heartache is what propels the play forward and manifests in his debilitating madness and a rough storm. As we take a broader glance we see that all the characters are in peril, all suffering from feelings of loss and abandonment. Lear’s story is mirrored in that of Gloucester and his sons. One son in particular, Edmund, allows the pain of being born a bastard and the rejection of his father to skew his view of the world and the intentions of his ambition. In his unyielding fight to take his father’s title and the wealth and reputation of his brother Edgar, he becomes a closer resemblance to Satan of Milton’s Paradise Lost than a pitiful but harmless illegitimate son. Satan’s obsession is also for power. He is defiant of God and seeks to overthrow his control of heaven to become, in a sense, “king”.
Though critics have argued over the true protagonist of the work, Paradise Lost is widely considered the story of Lucifer and his struggle for control. To examine the connection between ambition and despair in both of these works, one must see the misguided ways of each character. Edmund is driven by selfish ambition because of the rejection by his family and the prevailing popular opinion that bastards were, more or less, a worthless product of sin. The despair that comes from this drives him to commit acts that bring devastation on all characters, and ultimately, more despair to himself. In Paradise Lost Satan’s despair is spawned from rejection as well—after a failed uprising against God, Satan has been banished in disgrace to the underworld. This despair leads to perhaps the most famous ambition in English literature, which comes in the form of a desire to organize another uprising and ultimately his ascent to earth to tempt Adam and Eve away from their paradise. In the attempt to pursue their ambitions to ease despair, Satan and Edmund both succeed and fail. Though they wreak havoc on the characters they resent, they are never able to fix whatever caused them their initial despair and are thusly just as low as the characters they seek to destroy.
Like Satan in Paradise Lost, Edmund’s story is presented as a secondary plot line that becomes as relevant and telling as that of the main characters. In the beginning, when asked for a lavish display of fatherly love, Cordelia tells her father, “I love your majesty/ According to my bond; no more nor less” (I.i.93-95). This sets the tone for the play and emphasizes the theme for which Edmund and his father are a foil: the role of a child and father. We are first introduced to Edmund’s father Gloucester, a loyal follower of the King, who is described as an adulterer with two sons; the first, legitimate Edgar, eventually leaves because of Edmund’s scheming, only to return disguised at his father’s weakest moments. It is at this moment, blinded and turned out by the illegitimate son he though he trusted that Gloucester sees the truth. He says to Edgar, who he thinks is Tom of Bedlam, “I stumbled when I saw” (IV.i.18-19). This emphasizes the theme that people are not what they seem, an essential one for dissecting the character of Edmund.
At first we see Edmund and his father growing close; Gloucester is coming to trust Edmund and turn away from Edgar. Here is our first glimpse into the true character of Edmund. He is resentful and bitter over Edgar’s place in society and has already begun to work out the ambition that has been driven by the despair he feels over the inferiority of his birth and the love he feels from his father. He convinces Gloucester that Edgar is trying to kill him, involves himself with both Goneril and Regan, and ultimately leads the English army that conquers Cordelia. The dominant forces present in Edmund’s society would have made a life like his understandably difficult. The royal leadership is in shambles. The prevailing attitude of the time is that illegitimate children were rejected and forgotten about, even by their own parents. This dominating presence of social opinion, neglect by his father, and the general chaos of the world in this play are what drive Edmund to behave as he does.
The methods with which he aspires to power mostly involve deception and manipulation. He lies to his father about Edgar’s intentions in an attempt to rid his brother as an obstacle to power. With his lies he manages to get in his father’s good graces. Another method he uses is to become romantically involved with Regan and Goneril. This not only provides him a comfortable place with either of the daughters seeking their inheritance. But by allowing them to turn against each other it seems that Edmund’s desire to grasp the power that the women are fighting for is secondary to his ambition to simply make everything as chaotic and miserable as he feels inside. His final ambitious attempt at power is his leadership of the makeshift army that wars against Cordelia’s troops. He captures them and ultimately sends Cordelia to her unnecessary death.
Edmund’s final response of despair is his death. In his final moments he becomes remorseful of all the death and suffering he has caused. This despair comes as he is dying by the hand of his brother, an occurrence representative of the futility of Edmund’s life in general, and his failed goals in specific. Still, as Shakespeare states, “Yet Edmund was beloved” (V.iii.239). But before he dies he has many despairing responses to the futility of his goals and his life. In the beginning we see him lost in his despair over his place in the world. Even though he is introduced by his father as a son whom he loves dearly, the language with which Gloucester expresses the sentiment is rather chiding in itself. “Though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for,/ yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making,/ and the whoreson must be acknowledged” (I.i.19-22). There is an innate sense that, even if his father loves him, Edmund is lesser than his brother who is of noble birth. The moments before Edmund’s death are the pinnacle of a character’s despair in futility. He ponders whether he did have the true love of Goneril, Regan, even his father, and that perhaps he was consumed with the wrong ambitions.
Milton’s character Lucifer in Paradise Lost experiences the same feeling of rejection that propelled Edmund. He has been shunned from heaven and denied the chance to lead. He endures what most Christians at the time would have believed to be the worst of fates: he is rejected by God. The story begins en media res, or in the middle of things, just after Satan’s failed attempt to when the control of the heavens. Satan and his followers are on a lake of fire when Satan begins to devise another plan to bring himself and his angels to earth to introduce sin and suffering to the world. As we know, Milton’s stated purpose of his epic is to “justify the ways of God to men” (Milton 4:26). God is the one that must be justified, according to Milton, not Satan. Thus, we know as readers to approach the character of Satan, not as the typical devil, whose every whim is evil and whose determination is only to bring down the human race, but as a multi-faceted character who, just as man, wrestles with his relationship with God. Milton’s stated purpose also tells us that the dominating force of this story is God. God’s acceptance, love, and commands are all what move the plot forward, and what drives Satan’s ambition to overthrow him and win influence over man. Another dominating force is temptation.
This is evident in the struggle endured by Adam and Eve, as well as Satan’s inability to resist his desire for power, even when he’s been so badly burned by it just before. The inherent injustices in even the pure and moral world of this poem are also noteworthy. When considering the importance of Eve and Adam it is deemed that “Not equal, as thir sex not equal seem’d; / For contemplation hee and valor form’d,/ For softness shee and sweet attractive Grace,/ Hee for God only, shee for God in him” (Milton 4.34). There is a seemingly black and white interplay of God representing morality and righteousness, and Satan representing evil and injustice. But, as this quote explains, Eve is considered lesser than Adam, an inequality we are faced with even in our own time. Though Milton and his contemporaries probably agreed with the Bible and the narrator here, this inferiority of Eve is an interesting injustice to explore because it isn’t the doing of Satan, but rather the commandment of God.
Satan employs various methods to his aspiration for power that ultimately fail him. He uses trickery and disguise to make his way to Earth and the garden of Eden, paradise. When he is there he feels his reaction of pain and hatred and feels a resolve to once again try and bring down the paradise that God has created. He inhabits the body of a bird, then a toad to reach Eve. He is caught by Gabriel who he prepares to fight, but is eventually sent back to the underworld by God. But in his second attempt to utilize the method of manipulation and disguise he returns, tempts Eve, and sets into motion the events that lead to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the garden of Paradise, into the real world of suffering, hardship and death. After this, Satan returns successfully, to the cheers of his devilish followers. These methods and the actions Satan takes seem like the reaction of a spurned or punished child against a strict parent. Perhaps if Lucifer had in him the capacity to ask forgiveness of God, he would not have felt the resolve to fight against all that is good and pure.
Satan’s resignation and despair at the futility of his quest, become most apparent in the end, while at Mount Niphates, where Satan at last questions his desire to bring God and his human race down. He understands his innate sense of evil, and that he can not truly waver from his past. But Satan’s doubt is an important detail of Paradise Lost. It shows us that there is an inkling of good in everyone and everything, even Lucifer. It also shows us the true power of sin and evil. Though Satan may feel a slight desire to cease and desist, he knows that his true self must continue on his path to destroy paradise. This is the influence of Satan’s own creations—sins of pride and vengeance—which even he does not have the power to resist.
Perhaps this is Milton’s way of telling us that hell is not a place but a state of mind. We trap ourselves there when we resign ourselves to sin, futility, and suffering. Another way Satan despairs is in the sense that his relevance undermined and his presence misunderstood among men. In the opening passage Milton outlines the plot of his epic without mention of Satan. “Of Man’s First Disobedience, and the Fruit/ Of that Forbidden Tree, whose mortal taste/ Brought Death into the World, and all our woe,/ With loss of Eden” (Milton 1-4). In his failed attempt at supremacy, Satan finds himself an invisible presence that perpetuates evil, not the revered deity that the humans see God as. Even further futility that Satan faces is the confirmation that good will win over evil. God forgives Adam and Eve, his son offers himself for their redemption, and the human race continues to repent for this original sin; it is clear to Satan that he has not won and his despair can be seen as the perpetuating existence of evil, pain, and death.
The works of canonical authors William Shakespeare and John Milton are essential when examining the nature of ambition and despair in English literature. While both authors deal with larger than life characters—kings and deities—there is an overwhelmingly powerful connection they both make to the human spirit. We learn from Edmund that the smothering attitude of society can be a pain all itself, and that how we are perceived equates to how we perceive ourselves. Satan teaches us the true power of sin, and that even when our hearts move us to overcome it, we can still fall prey to the influence of evil.
Works Cited
Milton, John. Paradise Lost (1667). Second Edition, Blackwell Publishing: London. 351 pages.
Dubbed as one of William Shakespeare’s greatest play, King Lear is a tragic tale of an aging king whose greatness has been marred by his wrong judgments and decisions. Set in the Elizabethan period in England, the play exhibited a society that is strongly hierarchical in nature. In this kind of society, there should be an absolute deference to power and respect must be paid not only to those who possess money and position but also to parents and the elderly. The lesson we can realize in this play is that no matter how great a king can be — he can still be vulnerable to take wrong judgments as the cause of his imminent downfall.
Essentially, the plot of King Lear gives credence to the famous adage that one should not judge a book by its cover. As the elderly monarch of Britain, King Lear came into an important decision of dividing his kingdom among his daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. In this effort, King Lear wanted his daughters to be on a test to prove on how much they loved him. Of course, Goneril and Regan produced the sweetest words to express their love and affection for their father.
However, when it was Cordelia’s turn she refused to oblige in this request by her father. For Cordelia, she really has not enough words to describe how much she loved and admired her father. However, King Lear could not understand why Cordelia would not give in to his request. Of course, being the youngest and the favorite daughter, King Lear did not expect this unexpected reaction from Cordelia. Disappointed by her favorite daughter’s refusal to express her affection to the great king, King Lear was furious and decided to banish Cordelia from his kingdom and disinherit her all the properties and treasures she might get from him. For King Lear, Cordelia has extremely disobeyed his request and this exemplifies a crisis not only in his authority among his daughters, but in his kingdom as well.
Unfortunately, it did not take long for King Lear to realize that Goneril and Regan feigned their love and affection expressed to him. After King Lear turned over his power and authority to them, Goneril and Regan began to undermine his influence over them. As a result of this betrayal, King Lear debilitated into madness. After going insane, King Lear banished away from the houses of his daughters and later finding himself in a heath accompanied by a court jester and Kent.
Another nobleman Gloucester becomes aware of King Lear’s tragic fate and decided to assist him despite all the troubles he might face in doing this. When Regan and her husband became aware of Gloucester’s plan, they falsely accuse him of treason and punished him into blindness. Later, Cordelia led a French army to rescue his father from the cruelty of her sisters. Unfortunately, Cordelia’s troops were defeated as she and King Lear were captured. More tragedy ensued as Goneril poisoned Regan out of jealousy and commits suicide after. Cordelia is also executed and after learning all the tragic outcome of his wrong decision, King Lear himself died in the end out of sheer depression and grief.
Shakespeare here utilized an extreme form of tragic ending, where all the major characters ended in their sorry demise in the end. After just one wrong decision and judgment, everything came downwards spiral. To be sure, we are all aware that we can all commit terrible errors in life with terrifying consequences. However, in this play, we can be witnesses to a fact that all of the pain that King Lear had undergone can be cathartic.
As great and powerful men age like King Lear and Gloucester, they still in some sense become “better men” at the end of their lives than they were at the beginning of the action. It shows that even kings and fathers can be vulnerable to wrong decisions and they are not infallible. Shakespeare seemed to emphasize the degree to which the protagonists have been able to learn and grow through the endurance of tragic suffering. As a result, the audience is likely to emerge overwhelmed that they do not have to undergo the same problems King Lear had faced, as they will be overcome with pity and fear.
In the play’s ten acts, it focused much on how King Lear slowly fell down on his knees with just one wrong judgment. A subplot about Gloucester’s own downfall with his own family came to parallel as to what King Lear has experienced with his daughters. King Lear eventually came to accept the fact that he has been “a foolish fond old man.” In a parallel recognition, the blinded Gloucester acknowledges that he too faced his own downfall as he stumbled in his own decision.
Both fathers experienced the brunt of their earlier misdeeds. Having dethroned and his kingdom divided, Lear soon discovers that he is powerless to prevent his evil daughters from joining with Gloucester’s bastard son in an all-out effort to destroy him until they destroyed each other in the end. For King Lear, as he enters cradling his beloved daughter in his arms, this is the ultimate punishment for the arrogance and folly that had led him, at the beginning, to spurn and disinherit her.
Overall, Shakespeare’s story is one-of-a-kind because it is unbelievably tragic to happen in real life, where daughters became traitors to their own father. However, we must know that power corrupts everyone and in this story we can learn about how it destroyed everyone in the end.
William Shakespeare is one of the most famous playwrights in world history who has created many vivid images, the negative characters of which take a special place. In King Lear, there are four key villains, including Regan, Goneril, Edmund, and Cornwall. Regan and Goneril are two greedy and contemptible daughters of King Lear, whom he bequeathed the kingdom (Degünther 18). After deceiving the kingdom by dishonesty, they pursue their father and want to kill him.
While selecting the measure of punishment for Gloucester, a nobleman committed to Lear, Regan states “hang him instantly”, and Goneril adds “pluck out his eyes” (Shakespeare 665). They also kill Count Gloucester, Lear’s friend, tearing his eyes out and their younger sister Cornelia by strangling her. When their crimes become evident to people, Goneril poisons her sister and kills herself with a dagger. Both of the mentioned villains want power, authority, and manipulation to achieve their goals by any means.
The role of Cornwall, Regan’s husband, does not have a self-sufficient value and performs essentially a supplemental function. He’s disgusting and sadistic cruelty is of interest not on its own yet merely as a way of allowing Shakespeare to show that Regan is no less cruel than her spouse (Linley 256). Cornwall wants to depose King Lear and intentionally ignores him by refusing to speak.
In his turn, Edmund, the illegitimate son of Gloucester, is a character who would never commit crimes and cruelty to admire the results of villainous actions. At each stage of his activity, he pursues rather specific tasks, the solution of which should serve his enrichment and elevation. For example, Edmund says about the death of Cordelia and Lear that “the battle done and they within our power” (Shakespeare 665). This villain tries to manipulate everyone, yet he is murdered by his brother, Edgar. It is evident from the piece that he is jealous of his brother and rejects the fact of being a bastard:
Why ‘bastard’? Wherefore ‘base’?
When my dimensions are as well compact (1.2.6–10).
However, it should be stressed that before his death, this character attempts to prevent the killings of King Lear and Cordelia, yet unsuccessfully.
Each of the characters that make up the evil remains brightly individualized in an artistic way. Such an approach to characterization gives the images of evil a special realistic persuasiveness. Nevertheless, in the behavior of individual actors, particular features that are indicative of the entire group of characters can be distinguished. All the villains represent the relationship between parents and heirs turned into a serious problem that worried the most diverse circles of the English society of that time.
Speaking of the motifs that led the characters that are discussed above, one should emphasize that they overlap to some extent. Namely, the king’s daughters are driven by the same idea of receiving full power and liquidate their father (Shurgot 44). This motif partially coincides with that of Cornwall who is told by Regan to perform violence towards others. He would probably avoid severe cruelty if his wife was less authoritative and persistent.
The motifs of Edmund are much more complicated since he uses intelligence, manipulation, and control to slander the legitimate son of his father and takes his place. Thus, the theme of fighting for power and making others unable to compete is the key motif that integrates all villains in King Lear, while each of them also has specific goals to achieve.
Works Cited
Degünther, Alina. Good and Evil in Shakespeare ́s King Lear and Macbeth. Anchor Academic Publishing, 2014.
Linley, Keith. ‘King Lear’in Context: The Cultural Background. Anthem Press, 2015.
This essay will try to examine the x. These may be both the trickery that characters engage in to achieve evil ends and trickery other characters engage in to achieve good ends. An overview of the role played by evil and virtuous trickery in King Lear will show the viewer or reader that although trickery is generally evil, it could destroy both good and bad intentions. However, the play also suggests that while good intentions have the propensity to triumph, the evil enjoyed the ride.
Since this is a prevalent issue that emerges with King Lear, this essay shall focus on the thesis that while evil trickery which may mean evils ways to achieve evil goals already courts disaster or tragedy, the evil-doers are provided much more pleasure than the good.
This essay will also consider whether trickery serves an important function in the play. It will contrast one example of an evil trick with one example of a virtuous one. An analysis in the strategy used in the playing of each trick will also be presented. The trickster and the person being tricked, the switching that the trickster uses in order to play a trick on the person will also be put to light. This paper will consider whether the strategy of the evil trickster is the same as that of the good one or whether the strategies similar for the most part or similar in certain small ways.
Discussion
The play King Lear is the story of an elderly ruler of England in a mythical period between Rome and the Middle Ages. The King who is about to abdicate his throne wants to dispose of his kingdom evenly among his three daughters: the married Goneril and Regan and the youngest Cordelia who is still single. Lear calls for all of them to gather at his palace with the plan to offer the hand of his youngest daughter to several suitors.
During the family gathering with husbands and nobles attending, Lear asks each of his daughters. As maybe obvious in speech, King Lear made apparent to all how he might interpret the answers to his own question: “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?
That we our largest bounty may extend…” (Shakespeare, 1623, Act 1, Scene 1). So that the reader or viewer will know the flatterer as the liar and the sincere who will only profess deed. Goneril and Regan were the same, when one (Goneril) declared: “Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty; Beyond what can be valu’d, rich or rare; No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour…” (Shakespeare, 1632, Act 1, Scene 1, Verse 18).
It is arguable whether Cordelia was exhibiting her father’s pride (Granville-Barker, 1927, p 188) when she answered indignantly with consideration of giving also her love to her husband-to-be, as such insisted that what she declared was from her heart: “So young, my lord, and true.” (Shakespeare, 1632, Act 1, Scene 1, Verse 24).
Cordelia was banished despite Kent, the royal servant, trying to dissuade the King’s anger and wrongful decision. Regan and Goneril along with their husbands and Edmund, bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester proceeded to divide the kingdom. Lear spent time one at a time with his daughters Regan and Goneril throughout the year. However, Lear only saw through the deception of his daughters after Regan drives him and his servants out of her house. Goneril thus declared, “Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellows; I’ll have it come to question: If he dislike it, let him to our sister,
Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one, Not to be over-ruled. Idle old man,
That still would manage those authorities That he hath given away! Now, by my life,
Old fools are babes again; and must be used With cheques as flatteries,–when they are seen abused. Remember what I tell you,” (Shakespeare, 1632, Scene 3 V 5.)
The king was cast out without anything. But Lear was accompanied by the only man who has stood up to him, Kent disguised as Fool or jester. They strayed together with the Fool hoping to reconcile the king and Cordelia someday.
Meanwhile, the bastard Edmund destroys the reputation of his half brother Edgar and their father readily accepted the lies. Thus, Edmund showed a fake letter from Edgar which Gloucester read as, “Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should half his revenue for ever, and live the beloved of your
brother, EDGAR.’” (Shakespeare, 1632, Scene 2, V 13). The duke himself was soon blind, then banished. Edgar who pretended to be a poor man soon crossed paths with Lear. Edgar soon discovered his father as blind and they reconcile upon establishing the truth behind Edmund’s trickery.
Cordelia married the King of France. And soon, she took an army to invade England. As the fight ensues, Cordelia meets her wandering father and Lear recognized her. They finally reconciled. Cordelia, however, was killed and Lear, not being able to cope, followed suit. The end shows the viewers a kingdom ruined.
As clearly painted on the play, the story of King Lear is rich of negative and positive deception. It is not clear to point if Cordelia’s own bluntness itself is a form of deception as she had to suppress her overflowing emotion to bluntly place a fact that after marriage, her love and loyalty is divided between her husband and her father, King Lear.
The lies, however of Goneril and Regan are blatant and pure flatteries: said only to please the receiving end. The effect was an old, perhaps senile man’s way of reciprocating the lies – to give or divide his kingdom for the tow flatterers and banish the honest Cordelia.
Another trickery in King Lear is the servant Kent disguising to continue serving his King. This is a positive trickery as the intention is good and there is the loyal devotion seen on the servant who became the Fool or jester. Another trickery played is by Edgar, the son of Gloucester. This is another positive trickery as it was to save himself from persecution as well as find ways to correct a wrong done.
But the most notable trickery of all is itself the opening, the part where King Lear decided to measure his daughter’s loyalty and ability to manage a kingdom through profession of verbal love for him. Although he should have grown wise to know the truth, he was blinded to play fool, like a Russian roulette, only to be the main loser.
Conclusion
In summation, the story of King Lear is fool of trickery from the start. It bean with the king tricking his daughters so that the first casualty was the innocent and pure: Cordelia, as it was not right to divide a kingdom among persons who profess a vocal devotion when in his heart, he already knew the truth. He soon found out he was tricked himself as the true colors of Goneril and Regan became apparent.
The trickery, however, was not limited to negative. There are also positive trickeries done by Kent and Edgar. Although the actions of Kent and Edgar proved to be right, it did not redeem the whole story as Cordelia and the king remained victims of their fate and the kingdom was left ruined. In conclusion, while evil and good remains separated, the evil doers enjoy more pleasure for their acts as Goneril, Edmund and Regan proved in this play.
Reference
Granville-Barker, H. (1927). Prefaces to Shakespeare.
Adaptations create a distance from the originals by concentrating diegesis on several essential aspects, shifting emphasis. It is not necessarily new work, but rather the discovery of new meanings that may be contained in the original but underestimated by criticism or performance. A Thousand Acres (1997) is a film adaptation by director Jocelyn Moorhouse of Jane Smiley’s eponymous novel, the modern prototype of William Shakespeare’s King Lear (1606). The task of A Thousand Acres is to demonstrate the relevance and popularity of the primary source among the modern reader, simultaneously with criticism and rethinking of specific points.
Comparing the plot and characters of Shakespeare’s play and its adaptation, it becomes evident that Moorhouse has remained relatively close to the first text in many ways. Although the action takes place in the 1970s in Iowa, the plot of her production remains identical. Both tragedies are the story of a father who divides his property between his two daughters while rejecting the third, who later comes to the father’s aid. Other parallels exist at imagery: as symbols of status and power, Larry Cook’s thousand acres correspond to King Lear’s hundred knights. Furthermore, both works develop themes of compassion and reconciliation, the appearance and role of women in a patriarchal society. There is an illustration of the suppression of women with the dominance of men. Thus, the similarities found in King Lear and A Thousand Acres serve as a reminder that time passes, but attitudes and manners rarely change.
However, A Thousand Acres differs from the original in many significant aspects. First of all, Smiley made the author’s task more difficult by moving the characters of her rework to entirely different time and space from the original. Moreover, incest is critical, while King Lear does not speak about it directly, and Shakespeare only describes the relationship between father and daughter as overly passionate. In King Lear, Lear is an arrogant and rude person, but he grows and learns humility throughout the play, contributing to his reconciliation with his daughter Cordelia. In turn, Lear’s prototype – Larry Cook is not capable of moral improvement, remains arrogant and selfish until the end of his life, and the family remains fragmented. Furthermore, the role of women in society is also described in different ways in these works. In Shakespeare’s original, women have no place in patriarchal power structures. They are compared to the devil: “See thyself, devil! Proper deformity shows not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman” (Shakespeare, n.d.). In A Thousand Acres, women, on the contrary, evoke compassion.
Regarding the juxtaposition of the adaptation with the original, although Larry’s physical abuse of his daughter is weakened in the adaptation, the moral gap between father and daughter appears to be more precise and emotional. Thus, an inversion of values takes place in Moorhouse’s film compared to the traditional King Lear. Despite the vast time difference between the two works, both productions contain universal concepts with which societies of both the past and the present can identify themselves. Jane Smiley and Jocelyn Moorhouse managed to unveil Shakespeare’s play with extraordinary precision to modernity’s realities, making the necessary adjustments and revealing new meanings.
Shakespeare’s plays are among the most adapted in the world. It is because the topics covered by this author will never lose their relevance, and the viewer will always watch it with interest, regardless of whether it is a comedy or a tragedy. Key topics, including human passions, relationships, and weaknesses, are simple and understandable to all people, regardless of their status and wealth. Moreover, in the modern dynamic world, people lack many feelings: beauty and nobility of deeds, love, fortitude, and friendship, and in Shakespeare’s comedies, there is a lot of optimism and resourcefulness with an obligatory happy ending. As for directors’ attention to Shakespeare’s works, his products are so obvious but profound that each creator can present to the world his interpretation. Thus, thanks to these aspects, Shakespeare’s plays are still relevant today.
Reference
Shakespeare, W. (n.d.). King Lear. The Folger Shakespeare. Web.
The tragedy “King Lear” is undoubtedly one of Shakespeare’s most profound and grandiose works. The main character’s suffering in this work surpasses all anguish depicted by Shakespeare both before and after this drama. But it is not only the power of tragic tension that distinguishes this work. It surpasses Shakespeare’s other creations in its reflection of societal problems and the universal character these problems acquire in the play. The tragedy “King Lear” reflects the heavy suffering of the masses in the modern Shakespeare era, marked by profound changes in the life of English society.
The Tragedy as a Depiction of Shakespeare’s Era
The legend of King Lear and his daughters goes back to ancient times: it probably originated in ancient Britain before the invasion of the Anglo-Saxons. Thus, in its original form, it was the saga of the British Celts. However, Shakespeare depicted the characters of the saga not as individual persons with their problems but rather as a collective image aimed to portray the problems that reigned in society at that time. Thus, in “King Lear” the problems of family relations are closely intertwined with the problems of social and political character.
First of all, in order to depict the universality of the events, to show that this is not a particular case he describes but the characteristics of his epoque, Shakespeare doubled the plot, telling, in parallel with the tragedy of Lear, about the conflict in the family of a nobleman close to him, Gloster. Similar events take place under the roof of different castles. Regan, Goneril, her butler Oswald, and the traitor Edmund are not isolated “villains”. Shakespeare created a tragedy in which he invested a lot of social content and in which, using the plot outline of an ancient legend, he exposed the true essence of his times.
The two planes of the tragedy vividly depict the confrontation of sincerity with callousness, greed and ambition, the struggle for power, righteous revenge, and, finally, the death of the main actors against the background of the discovery of the betrayal on the part of their close relatives.
The Image of King Lear
Lear, at the beginning of the tragedy, is intoxicated with the illusion of his omnipotence, blind to the needs of his people, disposing of the country as his personal estate, which he can divide and give away as he pleases. From everyone around him, including his daughters, he demands only blind obedience instead of sincerity. His dogmatic and scholastic mind asks for external, conditional signs of submission (Abbas and Khudair). This is used by the two eldest daughters, hypocritically assuring him of their love and is opposed by Cordelia, who knows only one law — the law of truth and naturalness. But Lear is deaf to the voice of truth, and for this, he suffers severe punishment.
Being expelled from his house, Lear, for the first time in his life, remembers about poor people out there. This is the moment when the king begins to understand that life outside the castle is full of suffering. The image of the king is dynamic and reflects the profound change in the perception of the king from the illusion of omnipotence to the painful knowledge of the cruel reality surrounding him (Abbas and Khudair).
This dynamic character of Lear is reflected in his speeches. Thus, at the beginning of the play he gives orders, proudly speaking of himself as “we”: “Meantime we shall express our darker purpose”, “know that we have divided in three our kingdom: and ’tis our fast intent”, “out of my sight!” (Shakespeare, p. 3). He also compares himself with an enraged dragon whom it is not wise to enrage: “come not between the dragon and his wrath” (Shakespeare, p. 4.). At the beginning of the play, Lear sees other people as inferior to him and, thus, he says: ” O, vassal! miscreant!”, “Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me better” (Shakespeare, p. 5). Even after the abdication, Lear at first remains the same despot. He continues giving orders and insulting people around him. Thus, he says, “Your whoreson dog! you slave! you cur!”, “An you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped” (Shakespeare, p. 11, 13).
However, Lear’s character and his speech began to change in the storm scene. Here the readers see Lear who has seen all the truth of the surrounding reality. Thus, he says, “A man may see how this world goes with no eyes” (Shakespeare, p. 36). For the first time in his life, he thinks about wretched people and sees them as human. He also suffers from the fact that all the ideas which he entertained about life are untrue, and the life he sees around him is meaningless and cruel. This renewed Lear does not put up with the injustice that reigns in the world. He, who used to be one of the perpetrators of injustice himself, now condemns it. He is obsessed with judging – and not only his daughters but everyone who is cruel to others.
One of the most heartfelt places of the tragedy is the episode of the meeting of the mad Lear and the blinded Gloucester. Lear now sees that injustice reigns everywhere, the root of which is inequality. The power that he used to be so proud of was a reinforcement of this injustice. Scenes of Lear’s madness ensue. Lear’s insanity is not a pathological state: this is the pressure of violent feelings from within that shake the old Lear. Shakespeare shows that the king loved his daughters very dearly to be so passionately indignant at them. In the suffering of Lear, the true essence of the environment is revealed, where everyone is ready to destroy the other. It is not by coincidence that images of predatory animals, as textual analysis shows, are found in the text of King Lear more often in other Shakespeare’s tragedies. By introducing them into the text, Shakespeare wanted to depict the era of lawlessness where the strongest and wealthiest got the most out of life.
The System of Characters
The main characters of “King Lear” belong to two families and hold their respective places in the socio-hierarchical structure. The decisive role, however, is given not to the family and social ties, but to the internal characteristics of the characters that are either “good” and “evil”. Only a few of the main characters retain their original social and family ties, while others change them in the course of time. For many characters, the place determined by tradition and hierarchy turns out to be ephemeral (Rozikovna and Karimova). Thus, the king, the Earl of Gloucester and his rightful heir descend in the social hierarchy while the disenfranchised bastard rises to the very top. At the beginning, people’s nature is concealed by civilized hypocrisy. Later, as characters break out of their hierarchical place, their individual personalities become more pronounced.
In the behavior of individual actors, it is possible to distinguish features that are indicative of the group of characters as a whole. Thus, the image of Oswald combines such characteristics as falsehood, hypocrisy, arrogance, self-interest and cruelty that to a certain degree define each of the characters who make up the evil camp (Rozikovna and Karimova). The opposite technique is used when Shakespeare depicts Cornwall. In this image, the playwright highlights the only leading character trait – the unbridled cruelty of the duke, who is ready to give up his opponents to the most painful execution. However, the role of Cornwall, as well as the role of Oswald, does not have a self-sufficient meaning and performs, in essence, a service function (Rozikovna and Karimova). The disgusting, sadistic cruelty of Cornwall is of interest not in itself, but only as a way for Shakespeare to show that Regan, about whom Lear speaks with tenderness, is no less cruel than her husband.
The starting point in the characterization of Regan and Goneril is the theme of the ingratitude of children towards their fathers. London life at the beginning of the 17th century was characterized by many cases of disobedience and deviation from the old ethical norms, according to which the respectful gratitude of children towards their parents was something taken for granted. Painting the moral image of Goneril and Regan whose hypocrisy and deceit cover the selfish aspirations that guide all the actions of these characters, Shakespeare depicts the gradual degradation of social norms in the society (Binyun and Zhang). In fact, the readers see the community which is patriarchal only in its outer forms. None of the actors are interested in general notions such as the unity of family or the prosperity of the state, people are becoming more self-centered. While this is clearly seen in Lear’s elder daughters Goneril and Regan, ready for any deception to get their share of royal lands and power, the absence of patriarchal virtues of submission and obedience is seen in Cordelia too. Thus, she shows her unwillingness to humiliate herself with flattery and a public confession of feelings that she considers deeply intimate. The noble Earl of Kent, for all his feudal devotion to his overlord, shows no less independence when he boldly reproaches the king for unreasonable anger against Cordelia. Thus, Kent says to Lear: “I’ll tell thee thou dost evil” (Shakespeare, p. 6).
Although all the characters in King Lear have feudal titles and titles, nevertheless, the society depicted in the tragedy is not medieval. Individualism hides behind the feudal guise. The new self-consciousness the actors of the tragedy is expressed in different ways. One group of characters consists of those in whom individualism is combined with predatory egoism. First of all, these are Goneril, Regan, Cornwall and Edmond. Of these, Edmond acts as an exponent of the philosophy of life, which guides all people of this type. The second group of actors in the tragedy are people with a clear consciousness of their personality, but alien to egoism (Binyun and Zhang). Cordelia, Edgar, Kent, King Lear’s fool are guided by concepts of loyalty and devotion, and in their behavior, they are selfless. However, it is not the instinct of submission but the free choice of the object of service that determines their behavior. They serve Lear not as subjects but as friends, preserving spiritual independence, including the Fool, the most strident of them and mercilessly direct in his opinions.
In the course of the tragedy, two polar worlds are formed. On the one hand, there is the world of wealth and power. On the other – the world of all the wretched and poor. The portrayal of these two worlds reflects the state of society in Shakespeare’s times, where those who won in the shameless pursuit of wealth are opposed to those who lost the game because they were honest and this honesty made them defenseless against the treachery of power seeing hypocrites.
Conclusion
In King Lear, one of his most profound tragedies, Shakespeare portrayed the monstrous contradictions, cruelty, and injustice of the society around him. While there is no answer in the play as to how change the life of the society to provide equal rights and opportunities for everyone, Shakespeare condemns the patriarchic order people blindly followed to gain money and power. Shakespeare shows that no wealth can make a person happy as far as he or she does not understand the true values of life, such as honesty, loyalty and the truth that should govern people in their actions and their judgment of others.
Works Cited
Shakespeare, William. “King Lear:[1608].” Oxford Text Archive Core Collection, 1991.
Abbas, Assist Prof Dr A’bla, and Khudair Al-Tamimi. “The illusion of superiority in the structure of Shakespearean personalities a psycho-critical study (King Lear play as a model).” Journal of Nabo vol. 30, no. 37, 2022.
The theme of madness is the most powerful aspect of this tragedy. King Lear is portrayed as being insane throughout the play and his condition deteriorates towards the end (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 521). Two of his daughters recognize their father’s mental state and perhaps take advantage of the insanity to acquire power at the expense of their younger sister (Edmiston and McKibben 97). However, the two daughters attribute their father’s mental challenge to his old age. The insanity influences most of the King’s decisions as he banishes his loyal daughter and divides power between the two disloyal children (Woodford 77). The decision to disown and curse his daughter, viz. Cordelia, is uninformed, as it cannot be expected from a mentality sound individual.
Some scholars argue that both Kent and Cordelia are aware of the King’s condition right from the beginning, which explains why they remain loyal to him even as he mistreats them (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 523). The madness is connected to the trouble that befalls the King later in his helpless state as he faces all sorts of mistreatments from the two daughters whom he gives the mandate to run the kingdom. Due to his insanity, he fails to make an informed decision regarding giving away power to the self-centered daughters.
Appearance versus reality
This theme stands out throughout the play as everything works against the readers’ expectations (Edmiston and McKibben 96). In the opening scenes of the play, King Lear relies on his older daughters’ faked sycophancy, and thus he rewards them with his kingdom. In addition, against the audience’s expectations, he sends away Cordelia, who is the only loyal daughter. In addition, he banishes Kent, who is one of his closest confidantes, on grounds of disloyalty. However, his two older daughters, whom he entrusts with his kingdom, are disloyal to him (Moore 181). The two daughters, whom he entrusts the kingdom, later betray him by mistreating and neglecting him in his old age.
Edmond conspires to discredit Edgar, his brother in-law, to his father (Ioppolo 139). Based on the conspiracy, his father sends Edgar away and shifts his trust on Edmond. However, Edmond is a traitor and he is only driven by jealousy to have his brother evicted so that he can gain power in the kingdom (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 529). As opposed to the expectations of his father, Edmond later causes trouble in the kingdom. The loyal characters in the play are expected to hold the best positions in the kingdom; however, they are portrayed as the poorest, while the disloyal persons hold powerful positions. Therefore, disloyalty wins over loyalty in this kingdom.
Blindness
The theme of blindness stand out clearly in King Lear in relation to the physical blindness of Gloucester, who has his eye plucked off by Cornwall and Regan due to being loyal to the King (Urkowitz 136). The physical blindness is symbolic of mental blindness in decisions made by the main characters in the play. Such blindness is especially evidenced by the shortsighted decisions made by both King Lear and Gloucester in the play. The two are blind while selecting their favorite children to reward. For example, the King expels the honest child from his palace and gives leadership to the two irresponsible daughters (Edmiston and McKibben 92).
Blindness is also evidenced by the neglect concerning one’s responsibilities. For example, Gloucester is a philanderer and his behavior leads to the birth of an illegitimate child, viz. Edmund (Woodford 167). Edmund later becomes a threat to the kingdom to the extent of attempting to attain illegitimately. On his part, King Lear is blind in addressing the needs of the people that he serves as the King. He ignores the needs of the less fortunate instead of assisting them, as expected of a servant leader.
Irresponsibility
The play portrays both King Lear and Gloucester as irresponsible persons who lack the virtue of mercy (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 522). The King, in his capacity as the head of the throne, is expected to address the problems of the poor and less fortunate groups in society. Conversely, he ignores such issues. In the play, the King does not address the key issues affecting the needy. The King is self-centered and he does not exercise the servant style of leadership as expected of him. This self-centered nature of the King leads to the failure of his throne later on (Moore 182).
The irresponsible character of the King is also seen in his decision to delegate his roles and responsibilities to his irresponsible daughters, who are equally self-centered. Similarly, they do not care about the needs of the public (Edmiston and McKibben 89). In addition, the King has the responsibility of taking care of his youngest daughter. In addition, he has the responsibility of treating his daughters as equals (Woodford 113). However, due to his irresponsible character, he forces Cordelia out of his house and forgets about her. As a parent, one is supposed to take care of his/her children regardless of whether they are loyal or disloyal. However, the King is oblivious of his duties as a parent and a role model to his followers.
Just as the King has the responsibility of taking care of his daughter, Cordelia equally owes her father the duty of taking good care of him in his weak mental state (Moore 175). However, she neglects this role. On the other hand, Gloucester has the responsibility of taking care of his wife on top of remaining faithful (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 536). Husbands are expected to remain faithful to their wives. On the contrary, Gloucester’s philandering ways lead to the birth of a love child. This child later on causes problems in the kingdom by trying to rise to power illegitimately. In addition, Gloucester overlooks his responsibilities as a father by expelling one of his sons on grounds of disloyalty and dishonesty (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 521).
Authority and Order
The theme of power is evident at the beginning of the play where King Lear is portrayed as powerful and authoritative (Ioppolo 173). The aspect of power is seen in how he conducts his business without consulting his close allies. For example, he conducts the dramatic ceremony to divide power between his two daughters in the watch of Gloucester, Kent, and others. These individuals should question the King’s decision, but they opt to remain silent and watch as the events unfold (Urkowitz 112).
Power in this tragedy is not only exercised at the national level, but also at the family level. Without consulting anyone, the King expels his youngest daughter on grounds of being disloyal to his kingship. Divine power is also evident in the play as the King seeks providential help especially after the two daughters mistreat him later in his helpless state (Edmiston and McKibben 87). The King is heard ordering divine powers to come down and take his part after having a serious quarrel with the daughters.
Old age
Finally, the theme of old age stands out towards the end of the play. Due to old age, King Lear has to give up leadership to his daughters by claiming that he does not want to go to the grave burdened (Moore 169). King Lear has the sense that old age forces one to surrender some responsibilities as a way of preparing for death. Goneril and Regan recognize their father’s old age. They argue that his madness is mainly due to his age. Seemingly, the play suggests that old age deserves respect as Lear calls upon the gods to look at his old age and intervene in overcoming his tribulations (Archer, Turley, and Thomas 518).
However, the two daughters do not respect the fact that their father is old, and thus he deserves respect. On the contrary, they insult, ridicule, and neglect him. In addition, they do not take instructions from him, which leads to the fall of the kingdom. Madness and old age stand out as the most critical factors that influence the King’s decisions (Edmiston and McKibben 87). The two factors cause the King to make uninformed decisions leading to the downfall of the kingdom soon after his retirement. The old age contributes to the severity of the King’s mental illness.
Works Cited
Archer, Jayne, Richard Turley, and Howard Thomas. “The Autumn King: Remembering the Land in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly 63.4 (2012): 518-543. Print.
Edmiston, Brian, and Amy McKibben. “Shakespeare, rehearsal approaches, and dramatic inquiry: Literacy education for life.” English in Education 45.1 (2011): 86-101. Print.
Ioppolo, Grace. A Routledge Literary Sourcebook on William Shakespeare’s King Lear, New York: Psychology Press, 2003. Print.
Moore, Peter. “The Nature of King Lear.” English Studies 87.2 (2006): 169-190. Print.
Urkowitz, Steven. Shakespeare’s Revision of King Lear, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014. Print.
Woodford, Donna. Understanding King Lear: A student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents. Santa Barbara: Greenwood Publishing, 2004. Print.
These two plays have a lot in common with language use. Both the main characters have magnificent talent as speakers. In the beginning, they are both orators and convincing as persuaders. The language is often tricky and not the easiest to pronounce, but it is most effective. However, of the two, Henry V is accessible to the audience, while Lear is couched in symbolism and innuendo. Most audiences can enjoy Henry V even if they miss a word or two, but many of the symbols and hints in Lear go completely over the heads of the audience. The use of language in these two plays is also different, as in Lear it is a misunderstanding that words can equally love and fealty cause the King to disinherit Cordelia, while he gives his kingdom jointly to her sisters and their spouses. The most obvious similarities in the language of the two plays are that it takes a good actor to be able to deliver the lines at all, and a superb actor to be able to deliver them well. The most obvious difference is that Henry’s rhetoric gets better as the play progresses and Lear disintegrates as his mind goes.
Language in these plays is most difficult to pronouns well. King Lear starts with the King using very formal language and the speaker thus must have the impeccable skill or his tongue will surely trip on the poetic phrases. Being the language of the time among the educated, the actors of the time would have had little trouble with it. However, it was constructed by Shakespeare to have an impact on the educated audience and to impress them. He wanted to hold their attention and focus them totally on the words and also to make sure that the upper class would understand the symbolism and the often-used double meanings. It is interesting to note that Shakespeare said everything at least twice, rephrased and possibly spoken by different speakers, but each major statement was always repeated. It makes for difficulty if a fast-paced plot is wanted. However, in Elizabethan England, this entertainment was not expected to be fast-paced. The audience would have felt cheated by a fast-moving play.
In Henry V, we have a truly magnificent image of a King. He is strong, smart, and daring, but also possesses the ability to strategize and use people’s weaknesses against them. In the speech, he is such a smooth-talking wonder that he turns people’s own words back on them. He does this when the Dauphin sends tennis balls to him to remind him of an incident in his youth, Henry tells the messenger to return his promise to make all France a tennis court to play for the Kingdom and that wives and mothers shall grieve for these balls of the Dauphin as their husbands and sons pay the price.
The speech patterns and grammar of King Henry V are so well crafted that they are extremely difficult to deliver without mistakes. However, his oratory is so powerful that it figures strongly in the play as a force he employs in his favor to conquer France. He even charms the woman he would capture so that she goes willingly. One major difference in the actual language used in the two plays is that Henry V speaks in words much easier to understand, using less symbolism, even though his speech is extremely clever.
One major difference between the two plays is how language affects the play. In King Lear, it is the language that causes the first problem and leads Lear to disinherit his favorite daughter, because she will not lie or make claims with words that he should know from her deeds. She says as much but he chooses to misinterpret what she says as a refusal to speak well to him. In Henry V the language, and especially the rhetorical ability of Henry is as powerful a weapon as the soldiers and he uses it to strike against his enemies, shaking their confidence and rallying his troops to do more than they thought possible. In lear, Lear’s ability to speak sensibly slowly disintegrates as he descends into madness, while Henry simply gets better as the play progresses.
In King Lear, the language change as Lear loses his grip leads us to pity while in Henry V we are inspired by the way he speaks, even making the fact that they are outnumbered seem a boon because fewer will share the great glory of success against such odds. Whereas in Lear, the fool outspeaks the King, who becomes more and more befuddled. Lear has been fooled into disinheriting the only daughter who truly loves him and giving his kingdom to the two worthless gold-digging sisters and their husbands. By the end of Henry V, Henry has won the kingdom and the princess partly by his ability with words, while at the end of King Lear, the old man has lost everything and is babbling nonsense.