King Lear Summary/Quotes

Question 1

Act One key events

Answer 1

Setting: Lear’s castle
Plot: Lear has decided to divide his kingdom because of his old age, and wants to give a part to each of his daughters. Goneril and Regan please him, but Cordeila will not go along with his game of saying I love you to him. She is banished, along with Kent, and she goes to France, while Kent disguises himself. Lear plans to live with each of his daughters in turn.

Characters introduced: Lear, Cordelia, Goneril, Regan, Kent, France, Burgandy, Albany

Question 2

Key quotes: Act 1

Answer 2

1. “Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.” (l, i, 36) Lear’s foolish opening actions, expressed as “darker”
2. “Which of you shall we say doth love us most?” (I, I, 49) - tragic flaw? Lear’s need to be loved.
3. “Nothing, my lord.” (I, I, 87) - Cordelia’s response which leads to her banishment. Further imagery surrounding the word “nothing”.
4. “Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” (I, i, 124) Image of Lear as a dragon, powerful but dangerous.
5. “Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit” (I, ii, 171) - Edmund as tragic villain, both selfish but also cunning.
6. “Who is it that can tell me who I am?” (I, iv, 230) - Lear’s search for identity which was so closely linked with his position as king.
7. “My Lady’s father.” (I, iv, 79 Oswald) - issues of identity: Lear is no longer the king. Also “Lear’s shadow” (1, iv, 218 the Fool), suggesting how much of his identity was lost when he gave away his title and position.
8. “Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,/More hideous, when thou show’st thee in a child,/ Than the sea-monster.” (I, iv, 283) - link of Goneril (and Regan) to monsters and beasts.
9. “O! let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven;/ Keep me in temper; I would not be mad!” (I, v, 51) - introduces Lear’s descent into madness.

Question 3

Act Two key events

Answer 3

Plot: side plot is introduced with Gloucester disowning Edgar because of Edmund saying that he is plotting to kill Gloucester. Edgar runs away and disguises himself as a beggar. Meanwhile, Goneril is annoyed at Lear’s soldiers, and tells him to get rid of them, which causes him to leave for Regan’s castle. Kent accompanies Lear who arrvies at Regan’s castle only to get berated and insulted.

Question 4

Key quotes: Act 2

Answer 4

1. “Till noon! Till night, my lord; and all night too.” (II, ii, 131) Regan’s villainous response to Kent, who represents Lear to her.
2. “Edgar I nothing am.” (II, iii, 21) - continued use of ‘nothing’, here to consider concepts of identity.
3. “Lear: No I say/ Kent: I say, yea.” (II, iv, 16-7) - Lear’s inability to accept reality, reflected in the use of stichomythia(alternating lines).
4. “Oh Regan! She hath tied/Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here.” (II, iv, 131-2) and “most serpent-like” (158) - use of animal imagery for Goneril and Regan and irony of the fact Regan will behave in the same way: builds sympathy for Lear.
5. “a poor old man, / As full of grief as age” (II, iv, 270-1)- to what extent is this a fair description of Lear?
6. “Storm heard at a distance.” (II, iv, 282) - stage directions hint at the scenes to follow
7. “O Fool! I shall go mad.” (II, iv, 284) - foreshadows Lear’s madness later in the play
8. “Shut up your doors” (II, iv, 302 & 306)- the act ends with the doors being shut against Lear, the instruction being repeated for emphasis.

Question 5

Act Three key events

Answer 5

Lear begins to go mad on the heath of Regan’s castle, in the middle of a storm. The fool, Gloucester and Kent join him, and together they find shelter. Gloucester leaves, meanwhile Edmund is employed by the sisters and convinces them that Gloucester is on Lear’s side, to which they pluck out his eyes. Cornwall dies, but Regan continues to rule with Edmund