King Lear Overview

King Lear/Hamlet OverviewComposition of the play 1605-1606Sources:Geoffrey of Monmouths Historia Britonum .Spencers The Fairie Queene.An anonymous play called The True Chronical History of King Lear.Sir Philip Sidneys Arcadia.

King LearThemes of the playReason in madness and madness in reasonThe double plotThe unhappy endingImprobabilities in the playCharacter portrayal3The fool and his functionDramatic and melodramatic situationsA typical tragedyDramatic ironyAs a stage playA dramatization of a moral problemCordelias blunt and unvarnished statementLears vanity and impulsivenessHypocrisy of Goneril and ReganEdmunds grievance against societyTheme of Renunciation

Lears basic flaw at the beginning of the play is that he values appearances above reality. He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesnt want to fulfill a kings obligations of governing for the good of his subjects. Similarly, his test of his daughters demonstrates that he values a flattering public display of love over real love. He doesnt ask which of you doth love us most, but rather, which of you shall we say doth love us most? (1.1.49). Most readers conclude that Lear is simply blind to the truth, but Cordelia is already his favorite daughter at the beginning of the play, so presumably he knows that she loves him the most. Nevertheless, Lear values Goneril and Regans fawning over Cordelias sincere sense of filial duty.

King LearAn important question to ask is whether Lear develops as a characterwhether he learns from his mistakes and becomes a better and more insightful human being. In some ways the answer is no: he doesnt completely recover his sanity and emerge as a better king. But his values do change over the course of the play. As he realizes his weakness and insignificance in comparison to the awesome forces of the natural world, he becomes a humble and caring individual. He comes to cherish Cordelia above everything else and to place his own love for Cordelia above every other consideration, to the point that he would rather live in prison with her than rule as a king again.

Cordelias chief characteristics are devotion, kindness, beauty, and honestyhonesty to a fault, perhaps. She is contrasted throughout the play with Goneril and Regan, who are neither honest nor loving, and who manipulate their father for their own ends. By refusing to take part in Lears love test at the beginning of the play, Cordelia establishes herself as a repository of virtue, and the obvious authenticity of her love for Lear makes clear the extent of the kings error in banishing her. For most of the middle section of the play, she is offstage, but as we observe the depredations of Goneril and Regan and watch Lears descent into madness, CordeliaCordelia is never far from the audiences thoughts, and her beauty is venerably described in religious terms. Indeed, rumors of her return to Britain begin to surface almost immediately, and once she lands at Dover, the action of the play begins to move toward her, as all the characters converge on the coast. Cordelias reunion with Lear marks the apparent restoration of order in the kingdom and the triumph of love and forgiveness over hatred and spite. This fleeting moment of familial happiness makes the devastating finale of King Lear that much more cruel, as Cordelia, the personification of kindness and virtue, becomes a literal sacrifice to the heartlessness of an apparently unjust world.

Of all of the plays villains, Edmund is the most complex and sympathetic. He is a consummate schemer, a Machiavellian character eager to seize any opportunity and willing to do anything to achieve his goals. However, his ambition is interesting insofar as it reflects not only a thirst for land and power but also a desire for the recognition denied to him by his status as a bastard. His serial treachery is not merely self-interested; it is a conscious rebellion against the social order that has denied him the same status as Gloucesters legitimate son, Edgar. Now, gods, stand up for bastards, Edmund commands, but in fact he depends not on divine aid but on his own initiative (1.2.22). He is the ultimate self-made man, and he is such a cold and capable villain that it is entertaining to watch him work, much as the audience can appreciate the clever wickedness of Iago in Othello. EdmundOnly at the close of the play does Edmund show a flicker of weakness. Mortally wounded, he sees that both Goneril and Regan have died for him, and whispers, Yet Edmund was beloved (5.3.238). After this ambiguous statement, he seems to repent of his villainy and admits to having ordered Cordelias death. His peculiar change of heart, rare among Shakespearean villains, is enough to make the audience wonder, amid the carnage, whether Edmunds villainy sprang not from some innate cruelty but simply from a thwarted, misdirected desire for the familial love that he witnessed around him.

There is little good to be said for Lears older daughters, who are largely indistinguishable in their villainy and spite. Goneril and Regan are cleveror at least clever enough to flatter their father in the plays opening sceneand, early in the play, their bad behavior toward Lear seems matched by his own pride and temper. But any sympathy that the audience can muster for them evaporates quickly, first when they turn their father out into the storm at the end of Act 2 and then when they viciously put out Gloucesters eyes in Act 3. Goneril&ReganGoneril and Regan are, in a sense, personifications of evilthey have no conscience, only appetite. It is this greedy ambition that enables them to crush all opposition and make themselves mistresses of Britain. Ultimately, however, this same appetite brings about their undoing. Their desire for power is satisfied, but both harbor sexual desire for Edmund, which destroys their alliance and eventually leads them to destroy each other. Evil, the play suggests, inevitably turns in on itself.

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Themes Motifs &SymbolsKing Lear is a brutal play, filled with human cruelty and awful, seemingly meaningless disasters. The plays succession of terrible events raises an obvious question for the charactersnamely, whether there is any possibility of justice in the world, or whether the world is fundamentally indifferent or even hostile to humankind. Various characters offer their opinions: As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; / They kill us for their sport, Gloucester muses, realizing it foolish for humankind to assume that the natural world works in parallel with socially or morally convenient notions of justice (4.1.3738).

JusticeEdgar, on the other hand, insists that the gods are just, believing that individuals get what they deserve (5.3.169). But, in the end, we are left with only a terrifying uncertaintyalthough the wicked die, the good die along with them, culminating in the awful image of Lear cradling Cordelias body in his arms. There is goodness in the world of the play, but there is also madness and death, and it is difficult to tell which triumphs in the end.

King Lear is about political authority as much as it is about family dynamics. Lear is not only a father but also a king, and when he gives away his authority to the unworthy and evil Goneril and Regan, he delivers not only himself and his family but all of Britain into chaos and cruelty. As the two wicked sisters indulge their appetite for power and Edmund begins his own ascension, the kingdom descends into civil strife, and we realize that Lear has destroyed not only his own authority but all authority in Britain. The stable, hierarchal order that Lear initially represents falls apart and disorder engulfs the realm.

Authority Versus ChaosThe failure of authority in the face of chaos recurs in Lears wanderings on the heath during the storm. Witnessing the powerful forces of the natural world, Lear comes to understand that he, like the rest of humankind, is insignificant in the world. This realization proves much more important than the realization of his loss of political control, as it compels him to re-prioritize his values and become humble and caring. With this newfound understanding of himself, Lear hopes to be able to confront the chaos in the political realm as well.

Darkness and unhappiness pervade King Lear, and the devastating Act 5 represents one of the most tragic endings in all of literature. Nevertheless, the play presents the central relationshipthat between Lear and Cordeliaas a dramatic embodiment of true, self-sacrificing love. Rather than despising Lear for banishing her, Cordelia remains devoted, even from afar, and eventually brings an army from a foreign country to rescue him from his tormentors. Lear, meanwhile, learns a tremendously cruel lesson in humility and eventually reaches the point where he can reunite joyfully with Cordelia and experience the balm of her forgiving love. ReconciliationLears recognition of the error of his ways is an ingredient vital to reconciliation with Cordelia, not because Cordelia feels wronged by him but because he has understood the sincerity and depth of her love for him. His maturation enables him to bring Cordelia back into his good graces, a testament to loves ability to flourish, even if only fleetingly, amid the horror and chaos that engulf the rest of the play.

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes.

MotifsInsanity occupies a central place in the play and is associated with both disorder and hidden wisdom. The Fool, who offers Lear insight in the early sections of the play, offers his counsel in a seemingly mad babble. Later, when Lear himself goes mad, the turmoil in his mind mirrors the chaos that has descended upon his kingdom. At the same time, however, it also provides him with important wisdom by reducing him to his bare humanity, stripped of all royal pretensions.

MadnessLear thus learns humility. He is joined in his real madness by Edgars feigned insanity, which also contains nuggets of wisdom for the king to mine. Meanwhile, Edgars time as a supposedly insane beggar hardens him and prepares him to defeat Edmund at the close of the play.

Betrayals play a critical role in the play and show the workings of wickedness in both the familial and political realmshere, brothers betray brothers and children betray fathers. Goneril and Regans betrayal of Lear raises them to power in Britain, where Edmund, who has betrayed both Edgar and Gloucester, joins them. However, the play suggests that betrayers inevitably turn on one another, Betrayalshowing how Goneril and Regan fall out when they both become attracted to Edmund, and how their jealousies of one another ultimately lead to mutual destruction. Additionally, it is important to remember that the entire play is set in motion by Lears blind, foolish betrayal of Cordelias love for him, which reinforces that at the heart of every betrayal lies a skewed set of values.

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

SymbolsAs Lear wanders about a desolate heath in Act 3, a terrible storm, strongly but ambiguously symbolic, rages overhead. In part, the storm echoes Lears inner turmoil and mounting madness: it is a physical, turbulent natural reflection of Lears internal confusion. At the same time, the storm embodies the awesome power of nature, which forces the powerless king to recognize his own mortality and human frailty and to cultivate a sense of humility for the first time. The StormThe storm may also symbolize some kind of divine justice, as if nature itself is angry about the events in the play. Finally, the meteorological chaos also symbolizes the political disarray that has engulfed Lears Britain.

Gloucesters physical blindness symbolizes the metaphorical blindness that grips both Gloucester and the plays other father figure, Lear. The parallels between the two men are clear: both have loyal children and disloyal children, both are blind to the truth, and both end up banishing the loyal children and making the wicked one(s) their heir(s). Only when Gloucester has lost the use of his eyes and Lear has gone mad does each realize his tremendous error. It is appropriate that the play brings them together near Dover in Act 4 to commiserate about how their blindness to the truth about their children has cost them dearly.

BlindnessHamlet has fascinated audiences and readers for centuries, and the first thing to point out about him is that he is enigmatic. There is always more to him than the other characters in the play can figure out; even the most careful and clever readers come away with the sense that they dont know everything there is to know about this character. Hamlet actually tells other characters that there is more to him than meets the eyenotably, his mother, and Rosencrantz and Guildensternbut his fascination involves much more than this.

HamletWhen he speaks, he sounds as if theres something important hes not saying, maybe something even he is not aware of. The ability to write soliloquies and dialogues that create this effect is one of Shakespeares most impressive achievements.

A university student whose studies are interrupted by his fathers death, Hamlet is extremely philosophical and contemplative. He is particularly drawn to difficult questions or questions that cannot be answered with any certainty. Faced with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, evidence that any other character in a play would believe, Hamlet becomes obsessed with proving his uncles guilt before trying to act. The standard of beyond a reasonable doubt is simply unacceptable to him. He is equally plagued with questions about the afterlife, about the wisdom of suicide, about what happens to bodies after they diethe list is extensive.

But even though he is thoughtful to the point of obsession, Hamlet also behaves rashly and impulsively. When he does act, it is with surprising swiftness and little or no premeditation, as when he stabs Polonius through a curtain without even checking to see who he is. He seems to step very easily into the role of a madman, behaving erratically and upsetting the other characters with his wild speech and pointed innuendos.

It is also important to note that Hamlet is extremely melancholy and discontented with the state of affairs in Denmark and in his own familyindeed, in the world at large. He is extremely disappointed with his mother for marrying his uncle so quickly, and he repudiates Ophelia, a woman he once claimed to love, in the harshest terms. His words often indicate his disgust with and distrust of women in general. At a number of points in the play, he contemplates his own death and even the option of suicide.

But, despite all of the things with which Hamlet professes dissatisfaction, it is remarkable that the prince and heir apparent of Denmark should think about these problems only in personal and philosophical terms. He spends relatively little time thinking about the threats to Denmarks national security from without or the threats to its stability from within (some of which he helps to create through his own carelessness).

Hamlets major antagonist is a shrewd, lustful, conniving king who contrasts sharply with the other male characters in the play. Whereas most of the other important men in Hamlet are preoccupied with ideas of justice, revenge, and moral balance, Claudius is bent upon maintaining his own power. The old King Hamlet was apparently a stern warrior, but Claudius is a corrupt politician whose main weapon is his ability to manipulate others through his skillful use of language. ClaudiusClaudiuss speech is compared to poison being poured in the earthe method he used to murder Hamlets father. Claudiuss love for Gertrude may be sincere, but it also seems likely that he married her as a strategic move, to help him win the throne away from Hamlet after the death of the king. As the play progresses,

Claudiuss mounting fear of Hamlets insanity leads him to ever greater self-preoccupation; when Gertrude tells him that Hamlet has killed Polonius, Claudius does not remark that Gertrude might have been in danger, but only that he would have been in danger had he been in the room. He tells Laertes the same thing as he attempts to soothe the young mans anger after his fathers death. Claudius is ultimately too crafty for his own good. In Act V, scene ii, rather than allowing Laertes only two methods of killing Hamlet, the sharpened sword and the poison on the blade, Claudius insists on a third, the poisoned goblet. When Gertrude inadvertently drinks the poison and dies, Hamlet is at last able to bring himself to kill Claudius, and the king is felled by his own cowardly machination.

Few Shakespearean characters have caused as much uncertainty as Gertrude, the beautiful Queen of Denmark. The play seems to raise more questions about Gertrude than it answers, including: Was she involved with Claudius before the death of her husband? Did she love her husband? Did she know about Claudiuss plan to commit the murder? Did she love Claudius, or did she marry him simply to keep her high station in Denmark? Does she believe Hamlet when he insists that he is not mad, or does she pretend to believe him simply to protect herself? Does she intentionally betray Hamlet to Claudius, or does she believe that she is protecting her sons secret?

GertrudeThese questions can be answered in numerous ways, depending upon ones reading of the play. The Gertrude who does emerge clearly in Hamlet is a woman defined by her desire for station and affection, as well as by her tendency to use men to fulfill her instinct for self-preservationwhich, of course, makes her extremely dependent upon the men in her life. Hamlets most famous comment about Gertrude is his furious condemnation of women in general: Frailty, thy name is woman! (I.ii.146). This comment is as much indicative of Hamlets agonized state of mind as of anything else, but to a great extent Gertrude does seem morally frail. She never exhibits the ability to think critically about her situation, but seems merely to move instinctively toward seemingly safe choices, as when she immediately runs to Claudius after her confrontation with Hamlet. She is at her best in social situations (I.ii and V.ii), when her natural grace and charm seem to indicate a rich, rounded personality. At times it seems that her grace and charm are her only characteristics, and her reliance on men appears to be her sole way of capitalizing on her abilities.

ThemesThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

Themes ,Motifs &SymbolsWhat separates Hamlet from other revenge plays (and maybe from every play written before it) is that the action we expect to see, particularly from Hamlet himself, is continually postponed while Hamlet tries to obtain more certain knowledge about what he is doing. This play poses many questions that other plays would simply take for granted. Can we have certain knowledge about ghosts? Is the ghost what it appears to be, or is it really a misleading fiend? Does the ghost have reliable knowledge about its own death, or is the ghost itself deluded?

The Impossibility of CertinityMoving to more earthly matters: How can we know for certain the facts about a crime that has no witnesses? Can Hamlet know the state of Claudiuss soul by watching his behavior? If so, can he know the facts of what Claudius did by observing the state of his soul? Can Claudius (or the audience) know the state of Hamlets mind by observing his behavior and listening to his speech? Can we know whether our actions will have the consequences we want them to have? Can we know anything about the afterlife?

Many people have seen Hamlet as a play about indecisiveness, and thus about Hamlets failure to act appropriately. It might be more interesting to consider that the play shows us how many uncertainties our lives are built upon, how many unknown quantities are taken for granted when people act or when they evaluate one anothers actions.

Directly related to the theme of certainty is the theme of action. How is it possible to take reasonable, effective, purposeful action? In Hamlet, the question of how to act is affected not only by rational considerations, such as the need for certainty, but also by emotional, ethical, and psychological factors. Hamlet himself appears to distrust the idea that its even possible to act in a controlled, purposeful way. When he does act, he prefers to do it blindly, recklessly, and violently. The Complexity of ActionThe other characters obviously think much less about action in the abstract than Hamlet does, and are therefore less troubled about the possibility of acting effectively. They simply act as they feel is appropriate. But in some sense they prove that Hamlet is right, because all of their actions miscarry. Claudius possesses himself of queen and crown through bold action, but his conscience torments him, and he is beset by threats to his authority (and, of course, he dies). Laertes resolves that nothing will distract him from acting out his revenge, but he is easily influenced and manipulated into serving Claudiuss ends, and his poisoned rapier is turned back upon himself.

In the aftermath of his fathers murder, Hamlet is obsessed with the idea of death, and over the course of the play he considers death from a great many perspectives. He ponders both the spiritual aftermath of death, embodied in the ghost, and the physical remainders of the dead, such as by Yoricks skull and the decaying corpses in the cemetery. Throughout, the idea of death is closely tied to the themes of spirituality, truth, and uncertainty in that death may bring the answers to Hamlets deepest questions, ending once and for all the problem of trying to determine truth in an ambiguous world

The Mystery of Death. And, since death is both the cause and the consequence of revenge, it is intimately tied to the theme of revenge and justiceClaudiuss murder of King Hamlet initiates Hamlets quest for revenge, and Claudiuss death is the end of that quest.

The question of his own death plagues Hamlet as well, as he repeatedly contemplates whether or not suicide is a morally legitimate action in an unbearably painful world. Hamlets grief and misery is such that he frequently longs for death to end his suffering, but he fears that if he commits suicide, he will be consigned to eternal suffering in hell because of the Christian religions prohibition of suicide. In his famous To be or not to be soliloquy (III.i), Hamlet philosophically concludes that no one would choose to endure the pain of life if he or she were not afraid of what will come after death, and that it is this fear which causes complex moral considerations to interfere with the capacity for action.

Everything is connected in Hamlet, including the welfare of the royal family and the health of the state as a whole. The plays early scenes explore the sense of anxiety and dread that surrounds the transfer of power from one ruler to the next. Throughout the play, characters draw explicit connections between the moral legitimacy of a ruler and the health of the nation. Denmark is frequently described as a physical body made ill by the moral corruption of Claudius and Gertrude, and many observers interpret the presence of the ghost as a supernatural omen indicating that [s]omething is rotten in the state of Denmark (I.iv.67). The Nation as a Diseased BodyThe dead King Hamlet is portrayed as a strong, forthright ruler under whose guard the state was in good health, while Claudius, a wicked politician, has corrupted and compromised Denmark to satisfy his own appetites. At the end of the play, the rise to power of the upright Fortinbras suggests that Denmark will be strengthened once again.

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, and literary devices that can help to develop and inform the texts major themes.

MotifsThe motif of incest runs throughout the play and is frequently alluded to by Hamlet and the ghost, most obviously in conversations about Gertrude and Claudius, the former brother-in-law and sister-in-law who are now married. A subtle motif of incestuous desire can be found in the relationship of Laertes and Ophelia, as Laertes sometimes speaks to his sister in suggestively sexual terms and, at her funeral, leaps into her grave to hold her in his arms. However, the strongest overtones of incestuous desire arise in the relationship of Hamlet and Gertrude, in Hamlets fixation on Gertrudes sex life with Claudius and his preoccupation with her in general.

Incest and incestuous DesiresShattered by his mothers decision to marry Claudius so soon after her husbands death, Hamlet becomes cynical about women in general, showing a particular obsession with what he perceives to be a connection between female sexuality and moral corruption. This motif of misogyny, or hatred of women, occurs sporadically throughout the play, but it is an important inhibiting factor in Hamlets relationships with Ophelia and Gertrude. He urges Ophelia to go to a nunnery rather than experience the corruptions of sexuality and exclaims of Gertrude, Frailty, thy name is woman (I.ii.146).

Misogyny One facet of Hamlets exploration of the difficulty of attaining true knowledge is slipperiness of language. Words are used to communicate ideas, but they can also be used to distort the truth, manipulate other people, and serve as tools in corrupt quests for power. Claudius, the shrewd politician, is the most obvious example of a man who manipulates words to enhance his own power. Ears and HearingsThe sinister uses of words are represented by images of ears and hearing, from Claudiuss murder of the king by pouring poison into his ear to Hamlets claim to Horatio that I have words to speak in thine ear will make thee dumb (IV.vi.21). The poison poured in the kings ear by Claudius is used by the ghost to symbolize the corrosive effect of Claudiuss dishonesty on the health of Denmark. Declaring that the story that he was killed by a snake is a lie, he says that the whole ear of Denmark is Rankly abused. . . . (I.v.3638).

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, and colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

SymbolsIn Hamlet, physical objects are rarely used to represent thematic ideas. One important exception is Yoricks skull, which Hamlet discovers in the graveyard in the first scene of Act V. As Hamlet speaks to the skull and about the skull of the kings former jester, he fixates on deaths inevitability and the disintegration of the body. He urges the skull to get you to my ladys chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favor she must comeno one can avoid death (V.i.178179). He traces the skulls mouth and says, Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft, indicating his fascination with the physical consequences of death (V.i.174175).

Yoricks Skull

This latter idea is an important motif throughout the play, as Hamlet frequently makes comments referring to every human bodys eventual decay, noting that Polonius will be eaten by worms, that even kings are eaten by worms, and that dust from the decayed body of Alexander the Great might be used to stop a hole in a beer barrel.

Reference to the context of any play.Character is destiny, how far is this applicable to King Lear?Do you think that, with all his faults ,Lear is every inch a king?What is the dramatic purpose of King Lears madness.

University QuestionsCritically examine Hamlet as a Shakespearian tragedy .Is character or destiny responsible for the tragedy of Hamlet.?Write a note on Shakespearian tragedy with special reference to Hamlet?How would you read Hamlet as a tragedy or a problem play?Hamlet is not a tragedy of reflection but a tragedy of diseased thoughts. Discuss? **************************************************************