Act 4 Sc 2 Flashcards
“I must change names at home and give the distaff” goneril (4,2)
distaff= associated with domesticity and women’s work - represents the world of women. She’s comparing Albany to a woman and it’s about the transgression of sexes and what they each mean stereotypical and contextually. She’s going to take on the man’s role of weaponry and her husband takes on the ‘distaff’ she feels that she takes on more masculine roles and he fulfils feminine roles of emotion etc - shows the switching of roles.
“She that herself will sliver and disbranch from her maternal sap perforce must whither’ Albany (4,2)
means remove herself from (synonym for disbranch) lear is like a tree that she has disbranched herself from by disrespecting him. Extended metaphor; if a branch is snapped off of a tree it dies - he’s telling her that she is like a branch of a tree, she has snapped herself off from her `maternal sap”(lear) which is an unnatural thing to do and therefore she will suffer the consequences.
-Continued quote “..and come to deadly use” albany line 37: foreshadows her death.
“**If the heavens do not their visible spirits..” … “Humanity must perforce ** prey on itself like monsters of the deep” Albany (4,2)
this is a key message of the pla as a whole: the monstrous capabilities of human beings. Also shows the narrowness of the boundary between humans and animals/monsters, humans can turn into animals that prey on themselves. Possibly a sense of inevitability in what he says because he says (‘if the heavens do nothing about it then humanity will destroy itself”) we haven’t seen any evidence of the heavens intervening so it shows a sense of helplessness.
“That bear’st a cheek for blows” goneril (4,2)
Audience would pick up on the biblical reference as christian teaching is to ‘turn the other cheek’, despite the pla being set in pre christian times, the jacobean audience contextually would have recognised the reference due to a knowledge of the bible (they had to attend church and therefore would have a familiarity).
Thou know’st fools do those villains pity who are punished ere they have done their mischief”goneril (4,2)
people are punished without committing any crime, she is saying this is right and he is a fool for pitying people who are punished before they have committed a crime. Shows the topsy turvy world and how justice has been completely tipped on its head and almost removed from this world.
“Moral fool” goneril (4,2)
If those two words can be put together, it shows that this is a society where being moral, to have moral values would be foolish as it’s not going to get you anywhere. Juxtaposition of these words encapsulates this world in which to have a moral
“Proper deformity shows not in the fiend so horrid as in woman ‘’ Albany (4,2)
She’s going against conventions of a woman which makes her villainy seem even more extreme because of the expectations of femininity, idea of topsy turvy world. Her evil or her ‘fiendishness’ appears even worse due to what is expected of her
The duke of cornwall’s dead’ messenger (4,2)
-The fact that cornwall plucked out gloucesters eyes and then was killed shows that there is justice in the heavens that has avenged injustice on earth. the fact that albany clearly believes in gods and speaks to them here allies him with cornwall in a sense as they both shared that belief.
- structurally interesting in a tragedy because cornwall is a villain and usually villains die at the end of tragedies, albany the good son in law is seen to be standing up to his evil life, the bad son in law cornwall is dead = it gives hope that things might all work out, this makes the ending so much more tragic because of all of these glimpses of hope.
