Oswald

Question 1

“my lady’s father”

Answer 1

1:4
disrespect to Lear
insult stripping Lear of his power

AO3: Socially unaccaptable as in the Renassiance era women were viewed as possesions to their fathers and not vice versa, the Elizabethan view of the natural order is dissintegrating

Question 2

“would I could meet him, madam:

Answer 2

I should show what party I do follow.” (4:5, 39-40)

AO1: Edmund-like
AO3: Subtle warning from Shakespeare that behaviour like Edmund’s should not go unchecked or others will follow.

Question 3

Oswald picks a fight with Edgar

Answer 3

(4:6)
AO2: Dramatic Irony + comedy - He has picked a fight with a nobleman that he cannot beat. Reflects the confused, conflicted state of the world. Oswald: ““Let go, slave, or thou die’st.” - Ironic as he is the slave and Edgar is a nobleman and he is the one who dies.

AO4: Oswald’s naivety, myopia, hubris and hamartia
When Edgar knocks Oswald down we are visually beginning to witness people’s downfalls.

Question 4

“hundred-pound, filthy…

Answer 4

worsted-stocking knave” - Kent to Oswald (2:2, 14-15)

AO2: ‘worsted-stocking’ = wearing stockings made out of cheap woollen material; a gentleman’s stocking were made of silk. ‘filthy’ - kent views him as some kind of dirty animal as he is so low down in the great chain of being. Kent is disgusted by people of low social status working their way up

AO3: Direct reference to James I “hundred-pound” = cheap. The expression can carry this meaning only because James I sold knighthoods for a hundred pounds.
People bought into position.

AO1-Conventionalist (Kent) vs individualist (Oswald)

AO5: Arnold Kettle sums up King Lear a conflict between “those who accept the old order (Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Albany)” and “the new people, the individualists (Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Cornwall)

Question 5

“That such a slave as this…

Answer 5

should wear a sword” - Kent to Oswald (2:2, 68)
Sword = status symbol for being a gentlemen. The chain of being is being disrupted.
‘Sword’ and ‘slave’ are juxtaposed to reflect how upside down the rightful order has turned

AO1-Conventionalist (Kent) vs individualist (Oswald)

AO5: Arnold Kettle sums up King Lear a conflict between “those who accept the old order (Lear, Gloucester, Kent, Albany)” and “the new people, the individualists (Goneril, Regan, Edmund, Cornwall)