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Loyalty In Shakespeare's King Lear

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In Shakespeare's King Lear, characters are categorized into three distinct groups of malevolence, ignorance, and benevolence. Cordelia and Kent are the characters most prominently defined by their inherent goodness. This goodness is primarily exemplified in their unwavering desire to help King Lear. In contrast to the kindness of these characters is a kingdom plagued by blindness, viciousness, and mal intent. In this environment, one’s ability to disguise one’s own true goodness directly relates to their ability to survive the evils that perpetually surround them. From the moment she is introduced, Cordelia is depicted as an honest and compassionate daughter to an ignorant king. While her sisters grossly exaggerate their love for their father …show more content…

Much like Cordelia, his well-intentioned honesty regarding his thoughts on Cordelia’s banishment are misinterpreted by Lear, and he himself is banished (19). However, unlike Cordelia, Kent learns from this experience that compassion and honesty can be easily misconstrued due to ignorance and poor judgement. Kent’s commitment to the King causes him to return to Lear’s side disguised as a servant (43). His kindness and sense of loyalty compel him to remain devoted to Lear; he harbors no resentment towards Lear, even though the King didn’t always respect him. Kent’s innate goodness is what leads him to continue helping Lear, but it is the concealment of this true motivation that allows him to do so. Kent assists Lear through his bouts of war and insanity, implying in a conversation with Cordelia that his disguise is instrumental in his ability to do so (215). Kent’s willingness to sacrifice his pre existing identity to disguise himself as a servant allows him to remain selflessly loyal to Lear while also surviving in a social environment where kindness and honesty are openly ridiculed due to ignorance and corruption. Although it is implied that Kent wants to commit suicide after the death of Lear, he isn’t defeated by those who forced him to conceal his genuine motivations. Ultimately, Kent’s disguise allows him to take control of his fate after

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1469 Words | 6 Pages

This shows Kent’s intentions of feeding into Lear’s downfall by pretending to be someone else just to prove his love and watch out for him. As Kent pretends to be Caius, he’s only telling Lear what he wants to hear, and not the obvious truth: that his daughters are evil, and the power he had a confident grip on for so many years is slipping out of his fingers like grains of

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1287 Words | 6 Pages

While the events taking place throughout the play are outlandish, but the actions aroused by the conflicting loyalties are comprehendible. The audience can still analyze the character’s actions and thoughts and recognize that they are genuine and understandable human encounters. From this, a sense of humanity—that we all have certain concerns and duties and we must respond to them

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522 Words | 3 Pages

During the the Middle Ages and Renaissance loyalty played a huge role in everyday life. Men were expected to show loyalty to their king, their fellow soldiers, and to their country. In Shakespeare’s Macbeth, loyalty plays an important role. Macbeth,Malcolm, and Macduff are all examples of loyalty in Macbeth.

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362 Words | 2 Pages

The play MacBeth has many themes throughout it. The theme I picked out is that your desire’s can blind your loyalty. This theme is expressed and expanded upon through the entire play, from MacBeth planning to kill King Duncan, to his death at the end because of the blind decisions he made. In this essay I will expand on this by showing how desires blinded the loyalty of MacBeth and Lady MacBeth in this play. From practically the start of the play, MacBeth is becoming corrupt when the weird sisters say he shall be “Thane of Glamis,” (1.1) which he already is, and “Thane of Cawdor,” (1.1) which a messenger is on the way to tell him he is, “Thou shalt be KIng” (1.1) which is very suprised at and he starts to become blinded to his loyalty to the KIng, Duncan.

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149 Words | 1 Pages

The “Gettysburg Address”, written by Abraham Lincoln, was a speech delivered at the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg. Lincoln is communicating with the people to pay a tribute to the dead soldiers while trying to bring the people and country together and to brighten their futures. Lincoln uses a hopeful, yet serious tone to accomplish this. Lincoln uses strong diction and syntax, along with other rhetorical strategies to convey his message. Lincoln’s serious diction urges the reader to take action.

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672 Words | 3 Pages

The Tragedy of Macbeth is a play by William Shakespeare set in Scotland about a murderous and vehement king who spirals on a path of destruction as he suffers from the consequences of determining his own fate. The predominant theme portrayed throughout the play is honor vs. loyalty. This is represented through the identification, actions, and quotes of numerous characters. To introduce the theme of honor vs. disloyalty, the characters Banquo and Macbeth exemplify traits that are equivalent with the moral of the story.

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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

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It was he / that made the overture of thy treasons to us” (III.vii, 86-90). Gloucester is calling out to his ‘last’ family member only to learn that he has been betrayed by Edmund. In a sense, Gloucester is alone in the world. He believes that his legitimate son has betrayed him and now has his illegitimate son. His family has betrayed him and now he is utterly alone.

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919 Words | 4 Pages

In William Shakespeare’s tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Romeo, Juliet, and Tybalt display their loyalties by sacrificing for the ones they love. Tybalt shows loyalty by fighting for his family and friends all throughout the story. Demonstrating her faithfulness, Juliet gives up her own life for all the other people in her social group. Within the play, Romeo exemplifies many qualities of devotion by putting himself through pain for others. All throughout the story, Romeo exhibits several attributes of a loyal person by sacrificing many things for all the people that he cares about.

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1961 Words | 8 Pages

Once he realizes his wrongdoing he calls out to the gods that they need to prosper Edgar and not Edmund. This is ironic because Gloucester realizes that he made a blind decision only when he is actually

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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.

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1955 Words | 8 Pages

Preema Hamid ENG 338 Professor Prescott March 29, 2018 King Lear’s Character Growth Shakespeare’s King Lear is a complex play that complicates morality with foolishness, as well as associates madness with wisdom. It is about political authority as much as it is about family dynamics. William Shakespeare, known for his clever wordplay, wrote this play so that King Lear 's wisest characters are depicted as making foolish decisions. Lear, the King of Britain, is an authoritative and important man.

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583 Words | 3 Pages

Friendships are tested in many ways. Often, close friends, will come to each other with their darkest secrets, secrets that could be harmful to themself or others, for example, an eating disorder. In these times, the recipient of the secret is faced with a dangerous choice- to betray the friends loyalty and trust by seeking help, or stand back and watch the situation unfold, potentially ending in calamity. Oftentimes, teenagers especially feel bound to keep the others secret, no matter what problems arise.

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577 Words | 3 Pages

Loyal is devotion and faithfulness for a cause to make in life for someone you trust while disloyal is showing the absence of allegiance and being false-hearted to someone you barely know in life. In Macbeth by William Shakespeare uses the theme as dramatic device throughout the play to prove each characters loyalty and disloyalty. In Shakespeare's Macbeth, loyalty and disloyalty are demonstrated through characters' greed, faith, and ambition. As the play progresses the theme of loyalty is remarkably evident through Macbeth faith on King Duncan.

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741 Words | 3 Pages

If you encountered me during my misspent youth as an 80s metalhead and asked if Shakespeare and metal went well together, I’d have pondered the question deeply for several seconds before hurling a half empty Schlitz can at you whilst cursing your ancestral line as posers and PMRC collaborators most foul. In the fullness of time I’ve come to realize the great English scribe’s body of work is, in fact, potent fodder for metal, teeming with sinister plots, betrayal, murder and war, sweet war. This pairing has been field tested with 2 concept albums based on Macbeth, one of which coming from German’s second-string grave exhumers, Rebellion. Now, 15 years after tackling that timeless story of kingly ambition run amok, they return to Shakespeare’s

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