ipl-logo

The Importance Of Families In King Lear

2008 Words9 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Suffering and redemption in king lear

Families in Great Chaos: A Reaction Paper for King Lear

The play started with a festive musical then the story was unfolded. The main characters were then revealed. King Lear asked his daughters Goneril, Regan and Cordelia to say how much they love him. The beginning of the story started the conflict between Lear and his daughter Cordelia. That signified Lear’s incoming troubles as secrets and unloyalty are revealed throughout the story. The play shows tragedy that happened in the families of Lear and Gloucester. How can family affect the well-being of a person? In Shakespeare’s King Lear, which was performed onstage by the UP theatrical society showed how a family member can affect the lives of every member of the family and how bad decisions can lead to bad endings. King Lear is the king of Britain. He is of old age and he wanted to divide his property among his daughters in order to avoid conflict and war among the three of them when his time will come. He ordered his daughters to meet him and asked them to confess their love for him. This became his basis of giving each pf his daughters their part of the kingdom. The two older daughters, Goneril and Regan dishonestly used sweet and …show more content…

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, Cordelia, the youngest and favorite daughter of the king showed a very soft personality. Her honest answer to her father means that she is of pure heart and soul. She has no intention of getting the biggest part of the kingdom. She values family and love over earthly properties such as land and wealth. Unlike her two sisters, she respects her father’s decision and obeys every command that her father gives. Her appearance is seen as beautiful and young, signifies her kindness. Being with her father again means that forgiveness finally arose. It was a sign that whatever bad thing happened in the past is now just a memory because they have finally forgiven each

Show More
Related
789 Words | 4 Pages

The play which is set in Verona is a story about a long feud between the Montague and Capulet families. This feud causes tragic results for the main characters in the play, Romeo and Juliet. The events contrast hatred and revenge with love and a secret marriage, forcing the young star-crossed lovers to grow up quickly and die tragically in despair. Romeo and Juliet’s deaths could be blamed on three people, Tybalt, Juliet’s Father, and the Friar, because Juliet’s father was pushing an unwanted marriage, and then Tybalt he wanted to fight Romeo and he ended up getting killed, making Juliet’s parents think they

Read More
1552 Words | 7 Pages

This is one of many impulsive acts Lear had done Perhaps a lack of mother, or feminine guide to teach them about kindness and loyalty, Goneril and Regan have no restraint Regan and Goneril are also both married, and yet both are terribly unfaithful to their husband, cheating with the same man. This in the end, has disastrous consequences. It is said by a gentleman in the fourth scene, that Cordelia is “Queen over passion” (4.3.13-14). She rules removes her emotions and rules through intellect and logic. Clearly, Regan and Goneril do not rule under the same ideals MIRROR

Read More
842 Words | 4 Pages

Throughout William Shakespeare’s tragic play, King Lear, the goal of gaining control over the kingdom and boasting about one’s status drove the characters to deceive each other through the use of lies and manipulation. Right from the start, King Lear demanded that his daughter profess their love for him, causing Regan and Goneril to exaggerate their love all to flatter their father and gain the most of his land. When it was Cordelia’s turn, even though she spoke from her heart about how much her father means to her, her words did not praise her father enough as he insisted she revise her confession. Act 1 Scene 1 started the destruction of the Lear family as Regan and Goneril proved successful in gaining their father’s land by spreading lies

Read More
1336 Words | 6 Pages

No protagonist’s journey is complete without an antagonist there to reap in their sorrows. One could argue that King Lear there is no protagonist, but there are clear antagonists. Edmund, bastard son of Gloucester, is one of these painfully obvious villains. Every motive he has is to make himself the victor and drag someone else down. The treachery of Edmund’s villainy enhances the meaning of King Lear by putting him in situations that are not only dramatic, but outrageous.

Read More
249 Words | 1 Pages

The audience sympathise with King Lear’s redemption. Throughout the play, he gets a chance at redemption to make up for his mistake of having “thy truth being the dower:” for his daughter. He realises the folly of his actions and redeems himself stating “I am a very foolish fond old man”. This demonstrates King Lear's change in character as he learns that he is not as powerful as thinks he was and starts to become more humble. There is a lure of sympathy for King Lear because a story of redemption inspires people and catches their imagination, that anything is possible.

Read More
796 Words | 4 Pages

The Role of Family in Hamlet’s Success in Hamlet Family plays an important role in one’s success. Hamlet by William Shakespeare investigates this idea. This play, published in 1603, tells the story of a prince -- whose father has recently passed away -- who endures several conflicts. Dysfunction that occurs within a family can implicate a character’s success, as explored in Hamlet. This is exhibited through several conflicts with various characters with different family ties.

Read More
569 Words | 3 Pages

Here she reveals her guilt about the murder of King Duncan and how he resembled her father. If she was truly evil, she would not be over thinking her actions and having her guilty conscious speaking for her in her

Read More
1987 Words | 8 Pages

King Lear is about political authority as much as it is about the power of family and its’ dynamics. Lear is not only a father but also a king, and when he gives away his authority to the unworthy and evil Goneril and Regan, he gives not only himself and his family but all the people of Britain into cruelty and chaos. As the two wicked sisters satiate their demand for power and Edmund begins his own rising, the kingdom collapses into civil clash, and we realize that Lear has destroyed not only his own authority but all authority in Britain. The reliable, hierarchal order that Lear initially represents falls apart and disorder consumes the dimension. The failure of authority in the face of chaos recurs in Lear’s excursions on the heath during the storm.

Read More
1955 Words | 8 Pages

King Lear is an arrogant and powerful individual who is very much aware of his authority. Lear’s most obvious flaw at the start of the play is that he values appearances over reality. He wants to be treated as a king and to also enjoy the title, but he doesn’t want to take the king’s responsibilities of ruling for the good of his kingdom. Likewise, his test for his daughters establishes the fact that he would much rather prefer a complimentary public display of

Read More
509 Words | 3 Pages

She is only focused on completing her goal of murdering King Duncan so her husband can usurp the throne. She realizes that her husband’s personality is rather meek, and that he would not go through with murdering King Duncan because of a quality that he has, his humanity, which she considers his greatest weakness. Deliberating with herself, she thinks of Macbeth and his potential in regard to what could come to pass: “Yet do I fear thy nature, / It is too full o’ th’ milk of human kindness / To catch the nearest way” (Shakespeare l.v.16-18).

Read More
876 Words | 4 Pages

As soon as she heard Macbeth’s prophecy, she was willing to do anything to get him into the position of king. She was even willing to aid in the murder of innocent people who stood in the way of Macbeth’s ascension to the crown like, King Duncan. Her greed led to Macbeth’s downfall. When Macbeth stated that he was questioning his intentions to kill the king, she pushed him and assisted in the plotting. “We will proceed no further in this business. /

Read More
1057 Words | 5 Pages

This decision, which Gloucester made because he is too trusting towards people, shaped the way that things developed for him further on in the play, which nearly drove him to suicide from which he could only be saved by Edgar. These two characters show that their different character traits that are shown throughout the first act are a foreshadowing for later developments that concern their character and shape them towards the end. Lear as well as Gloucester gets saved by his child which they cast aside earlier in the play because of a fault in their character and which was the cause of their suffering in the first place over the course of the

Read More
858 Words | 4 Pages

It is often said that the opening scene or chapter of a drama sets the stage for the major themes that the reader will see throughout the book or play. This theory is proven to be true in William Shakespeare’s King Lear. The first scene in act one helped to introduce some of the themes that would be seen throughout the rest of the play like the idea of madness, reconciliation and the idea of authority versus chaos. One major theme was reconciliation. In the very beginning when Lear was asking his daughter how much they all loved him, Cordelia couldn’t come up with the right words to say that would express her feeling for her father and accused her sister of exaggerating their love for him.

Read More
1226 Words | 5 Pages

William Shakespeare's King Lear is depressing and has no mercy, but it also encounters many more aspects which are quite important for everyone to know, such as: trails of deaths, battles, love, hatred, treacheries and most importantly nature and culture. Shakespeare created a play where the world was cruel and there was only plotting and tragedy with no shining light at the end of the tunnel. Shakespeare makes King Lear, a natural figure to show the hypocrisy. The connection between King Lear and Cordelia is an analogy for the relationship of nature and culture. It seems that King Lear believed in culture instead of nature, he could not understand his youngest, nicest and the most loving daughter Cordelia only because she had no words to

Read More
1327 Words | 6 Pages

It is a striking event how he treats his alleged favourite daughter and how easily he believes the lies he is being fed. Despite this, his quote holds a certain truth to it. As Lear has sinned against Cordelia, his other two daughters have sinned against him. He is right in his words for the reason that, although he was unjust and treated Cordelia disrespectfully, he did it because he felt betrayed.

Read More

More about The Importance Of Families In King Lear

Related Topics

Open Document