Theme: cruelty/ suffering Flashcards
Topic sentences
The preponderance of the youth in the play are presented as disingenuous, ambitious and cruel.
Shakespeare perceivably employs allusion to the ultimate power of the Gods in punishing human behaviour, in the fate of Gloucester.
Shakespeare implies the good that can result from suffering and punishment, however, the ultimate ending of the play is arguably unjustified and wicked.
The preponderance of the youth in the play are presented as disingenuous, ambitious and cruel.
Quotations
“Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter; dearer than eyesight space and liberty”
“Those pelican daughters”
‘a disease that’s in my flesh … a boil / A plague-sore, or embossed carbuncle, / In my corrupted blood’
“That which my father loses no less than all… the younger rises when the old doth fall”
“Most savage and unnatural”
Shakespeare perceivably employs allusion to the ultimate power of the Gods in punishing human behaviour, in the fate of Gloucester.
Quotations
“There was good sport at his making, and the whoreson must be acknowledged”
“Out, vile jelly, where is thy lustre now?”
“As flies to wanton boys are we to the Gods, they kill us for their sport”
Shakespeare implies the good that can result from suffering and punishment, however, the ultimate ending of the play is arguably unjustified and wicked.
Quotations
‘When we are born we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools’
“Come on, my boy. How dost my boy? Art cold?”
“O, I have ta’en too little care of this. Take physic, pomp, expose thyself to feel what wretches feel”
“Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life and thou not breathe at all?”
The preponderance of the youth in the play are presented as disingenuous, ambitious and cruel.
Context
Queen Elizabeth famously made a speech in which she compared herself to a pelican, they believed pelicans would wound themselves to feed their young.
- Brian Annesley- whose daughters had tried to declare him insane in order to gain his property
- William Allen- whose daughters tried to swindle their own father and gain his money by improper means.
Can be read not just as historical narrative featuring kings, but also as mediations of monarchical rule,we see Shakespeare tackle the issue of patriarchal monarchy, where the king is figured as head of both his own family and of the state, a staple of Jacobean understandings of the relationship between monarch and country that saw in it an analogy to the relationship between a patriarch and his household. While Lear may have been a ruler of almost mythical status from ancient Britain, King Lear articulates pressing contemporary concerns about the power of early modern kings.
Honour you mother and father.
The new man-Ambitious, ruthless, individualistic, self-interested, felt no obligation to old feudal customs.Law was adhered to- Eldest son inherits money and property.
Shakespeare perceivably employs allusion to the ultimate power of the Gods in punishing human behaviour, in the fate of Gloucester.
Context
The ten commandments as the basis for morality.The lack of morality by many characters in the play and the terrible consequences of this, indirectly promotes christian values since we are shown the disastrous reality of a world without christianity. The 10 commandments were the foundation for morality, 7 you shall not commit adultery
Shakespeare implies the good that can result from suffering and punishment, however, the ultimate ending of the play is arguably unjustified and wicked.
Context
King Lear is a tragedy- death is expected
Protagonist Lear has a “tragic flaw” which eventually leads to his downfall. (Lear is blind to his daughter’s true nature)Public hanging, violence and dead bodies being paraded in public was common - therefore the audience wouldn’t have been shocked by the violence in the play.. supernatural- evil forces, tempting evil.
