SHAKESPEARE STUDY

Shakespeare Study

Shakespeare Study

The historical tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare revolves around deceit, tragedy, and violations of social statuses. King Lear lives in a time when offspring contrive against their fathers, friends become enemies, and even the most honesty of characters die in agony as the story reaches its unfortunate ending. Shakespeare, in designing the plot, intends to enlighten us morally on multiple magnitudes. We are often told that Goneril and Regan are “bad” characters, and that their collaborations are what stimulate tragedy, misfortune, and the ultimate death of both primary and secondary characters. Through my experience with King Lear, I do not disagree with this view but rather extend this theory. Despite what is characteristically evident of each player in King Lear, Shakespeare leaves much room for in-depth discussion and further interpretations of his characters.

King Lear, deceived by flattering her two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, divides his kingdom between them, while disinherit Cordelia-symbol of filial love - the little girl, who really loves him and does not want to fool with flattery. The sweet Cordelia, married the king of France, has to leave the parental home. For its part, Regan has married the cruel Duke of Cornwall and Goneril with another ambitious, the Duke of Albania, both motivated by their husbands, tired of the old King Lear soon begin to find bad-tempered, judgmental little strong, disruptive and nuts, they despise, with great pain of King Lear, he believed he had a haven in the home of her daughters. The significant and special relationship between Goneril and Regan not only stimulates tragedy and misfortune but also illustrates major thematic ideas and advances the plot in ways that only Goneril and Regan could (Shakespeare, 99).

Lear's attempt to speak to the storm which suggests that he has lost touch with the natural world and his relation to it, or, at least, that he has lost touch with the ordinary human understanding of nature. In a sense, though, his diatribe against the weather embodies one of the central questions posed by King Lear: namely, whether the universe is fundamentally friendly or hostile to man. Lear asks whether nature and the gods are actually good, and, if so, how life can have treated him so badly. Finally, we see strange shifts beginning to occur inside Lear's mind which keep on deepening Lear's psychological alienation. He starts to realise that he is going mad, a terrifying realisation for anyone.

We can also see the theme of alienation in Regan and Goneril's rejection and betrayal of their old father. They take no pity at all in alienating their father away from them. Lear, who has given them all his riches and power, gets nothing but this feeling of alienation from his daughters in return. They alienate him both from their castles and from their lives. When Gloucester begs Goneril and Regan to bring Lear back inside, the daughters prove unyielding and state that it is best to let him do ...