Goneril Flashcards
Thorndike - AO5
Thorndike calls them “inhumane sisters”
Hudson - AO5
Hudson calls then “personifications of ingratitude”
Martha Burns on Goneril and Regan
“It is all too easy to dismiss Regan and Goneril as mere emblems of female evil… when women are just as obsessed with power as with men, they are called evil rather than formidable. Regan and Goneril are formidable.
Kathleen Mccluskie on feminism
feels it is an ‘anti-feminine’ play as it ‘presents women as the source of the primal sin of lust’. The play forces us to sympathise with the patriarchs. She continues to say ‘family relations in this play are seen as fixed and determined, and any movement within them is portrayed as a destructive reversal of the rightful order.’ “The feminine must be made to submit (Cordelia) or destroyed (Goneril and Regan).”
Zoomorphism
“A fox” - Fool (1,4)
Lear refers to Goneril’s face as a “wolvish visage” - (1:4)
“This creature” - Lear (1:4, 267)
“Sir, I love you…
more than words can wield the matter” - Goneril (1;1, 54-57)
AO2: ‘sir’ = hyperbolic manner of address, sycophantic. Question her motives.
“Dearer than…
eye-sight, space and liberty, Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare, No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honor,- Goneril (1:1, 54-57)
AO2: Reference to ‘eye-sight’ are symbolic of her control of Lear’s sight. Reoccurring motif of sight foreshadowing myopia. ‘Valued rich or rare’ is a pun as we don’t know if she means emotional or financial wealth. Lexis of ‘grace, health, beauty’ intensify hyperbolic nature; as does comparative adjective ‘dearer.’
AO4: She’s blinding Lear with flattery (myopia)
AO3: William Allen, treated very badly by his daughters because they wanted inheritance.
“we must do something, …
and i’th’ heat.” - Goneril (1:1,304)
AO2: G says this to R as the sister plot against Lear, having ironically only just declared their love for him. After Lear’s banishment of Kent, they are worried that their father will turn on them next. This foreshadows their betrayal of Lear.
AO4: Foreshadows Lear’s downfall, His hamartia becomes more clear and myopia obvious.
AO3: William Allen - A mayor of London who was treated very poorly by his three daughter after dividing his wealth among them.
Sir Brian Annesley lawsuit - links to Lear’s ‘insanity’
“Ingratitude, thou marble - hearted…
Fiend, more hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child, Than the sea-monster.” - Lear to Goneril
AO2: ‘Fiend’ = devil
‘sea monster’ = animal imagery
marble-hearted = metaphor, cruel, cold, emotionless
AO3: - To Elizabethan’s the devil was considered the force of evil. It was believed to be able to take on whatever form he chose, human, or animal, to tempt his victims to do wicked things. Links to witchcraft: Jacobean’s believed that witches were possessed by demons and were associated with the devil. They conducted evil magic to cause harm on ordinary people and were punishable by death - Goneril dies.
- Links to Hamlet - Arguably the ghost of King Hamlet was not the King himself but rather a demonic entity that possessed or willed Prince Hamlet to incite the chaotic events that led to his madness and the fall of Denmark.
- sea monster - Greek mythology - Scylla (sea monster), was a supernatural, scary-looking, female creature. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses books she was said to have been originally human in appearance but transformed out of jealousy through witchcraft of Circe into her fearful shape. She was sometimes identified with the Scylla who betrayed her father king uisus of Megara, out of love for Minos, King of Crete, and was drowned in punishment.
”..this creature… into…
her womb convey sterility !” - Lear to Goneril (1:4, 267)
AO2: “this creature” zoomorphism - degrading
Lear is addresses “Nature… dear goddess.” and asks nature to make Goneril infertile.
Lear repeats the third person pronoun ‘her’ when referring to Goneril during his eruption.
Rather than blame himself for how his daughters are treating him, he turns on women and procreation more generally.
“That she may feel How…
sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is To have a thankless child” - Lear (1:4, 277-279)
AO2: ‘serpent’ = animal imagery
The metaphor of a serpent’s tooth emphasizes the pain and betrayal he feels from those he expected to love and honour him. The line serves as a stark reminder of the heartache that can come from ungratefulness, particularly when it comes from one’s own family
AO3: Children expected to obey their fathers at this time.
“O Regan, she hath tied…
Sharp-tooth’d unkindness, like a vulture, here!”(points to his heart) - Lear about Goneril (2:4, 130)
AO2: Simile + Zoomorphism
Lear might be recalling the myth of Prometheus, whose liver was endlessly devoured by a vulture.
AO5: In ‘the emotional landscape of King Lear,’ Arthur Kirsch writes “Like Hamlet, King Lear is essentially concerned with the anguish of living in the face of death. It does not look beyond the grave. It focuses instead upon the shattering of the heart and human deterioration.”
“Struck me with her tongue, most…
serpent-like, upon the very heart” - Lear about Goneril (2:4, 155-160)
AO2: Zoomorphism + animal imagery
Repetition of heart
“thou art my flesh, my…
blood, my daughter; Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh… thou art a boil, A plague sore, or embossed carbuncle, in my corrupted blood.” - Lear to Goneril (2:4, 215 - 255)
AO2: Lear’s body is a metaphor for the body politic. Lear is changeable.
AO3: The body politic has been corrupted
AO4: The consequence of Lear’s hamartia
(Aside) “I had rather lose the battle…
than that sister should loosen him and me.” - Goneril (5:1)
AO2: Determiner ‘that’ is degrading + separating herself from Regan. Foreshadows the conflict between them.
Contrasts Goneril’s strength and authority, which devalues her respect.
A03: A negative representation of female leadership. Women put men above their duties. Jacobean gender attitudes - women were viewed as weak and too emotional to make important decisions.
A05: Kathleen Mccluskie ‘anti-feminine’ play.
