Zusammenfassung der Ressource
Themes in "King Lear"
- Fathers and Children
- Gonerill and Regan plot
against their father and
Edmond is plotting against
his.
- Edmond repeatedly calls
Gloucester "father" when
Gonerill and Regan never
do.
- Both Lear and Gloucester cast out
children. Gloucester doesn't trust
Edgar and Lear is displeased with
Cordelia.
- Both the sets of
children are controlling
and possessive of their
fathers.
- Cordelia and Edgar are
the good children who
love their fathers but
they are being
banished and
punished.
- Objectification:
Edmond wants
Gloucester's title and
Gonerill and Regan
want Lear's power.
- Women
- There are two sets of
women in the play:
good and evil.
- Cordelia is the virtuous, good,
honest woman that would have
been expected for women then.
- Gonerill and Regan are the
women that would have shocked
audiences - evil, immoral, lustful.
- Showing two extremes
of the types of women.
- Appearance and Identity
- Edmond feels very bitter about
his identity which is the cause
of his villainous plots.
- There are a lot of characters
who are not what they seem -
they are hiding their true
intentions.
- Gonerill and Regan pretend to
love their father to gain his trust
and power.
- Edmond pretends to care for
Edgar and warn him so that he
will leave and allow the
manipulation of Gloucester to
begin.
- Edgar becoming mad - he is
stripping away his identity and
this allows him to understand
virtues and become the hero of
the play.
- Edgar remains in
disguise because he
does not want to hurt his
father further by revealing
who he is.
- Kent - he disguises himself so that he
can continue to serve Lear and show
his loyalty to the King.
- Sight and Blindness
- Both Lear and Gloucester
are blind to what their
children are doing to them.
- Lear is blind to how the poor in his
kingdom live but his madness
gives him sight and allows him to
understand.
- Gloucester becomes literally
blind - payment for what he
did to Edgar? Edmond's evil
scheming?
- Gloucester's
blindness allows him
to 'see' what Edmond
has done and how he
has wronged Edgar.
- Manipulation
- Edmond manipulates Cornwall,
Gonerill and Regan into his plot so
that he is close to the power.
- Lear is manipulated
out of his knights by
his daughters - he
loses his power to
them.
- Edmond manipulates
Gloucester into banishing Edgar
so that he is the favoured son
and nothing stands in his way of
gaining power.
- Edmond pretends to
love both Gonerill
and Regan so that
they will turn against
each other and leave
him in control.
- Loyalty
- Edgar remains loyal
to his father even after
he has been cast out.
- Oswald remains loyal
throughout the play even though
is he serving a villainous master.
- Kent comes back even after
banishment to show that all he
wants to achieve is loyalty to the
King.
- Cordelia remains loyal to her father
and helps him see the error of his
ways.
- Conflict
- The storm is violent and
represents the conflict between
Lear and his daughters at that
moment.
- Gonerill and Regan
show conflict the
later part of the play.
- Fighting over Edmond and
preventing one being alone
with him.
- Regan speaks to Oswald to find
out what Gonerill is trying to do with
Edmond.
- Regan poisoned by her sister.
- Madness
- Lear
- The madness shows his fall from
power and how he was once a
mighty King but has now lost
everything.
- He must go mad in order to
understand the truth.
- He becomes
dependable on the Fool
who is 'mad'.
- Edgar pretends to be mad so that he can show
development by the end of the play and in his revenge
against his brother.
- Gloucester's blinding is the physical
representation of Lear's madness.
- Revenge
- Edgar wants to have
revenge against his brother
for he did to their father.
- Good vs. Evil
- Acts Four and Five
sandwich the good and
bad characters, showing
the contrast between
them.
- The good join together
against the bad in the final
show down.
- Betrayal
- Gonerill and Regan
betray their father.
- Edmond
- Betrays his brother into
thinking that Gloucester
wants to kill him so that
Edmond has all the
power.
- He betrays Gloucester by telling
him Edgar wants his life and by
authorising his blinding.
- Betraying Gonerill
and Regan by
promising to be with
the both.
- Forgiveness
- Lear realises his
mistakes and forgives
his daughter.
- Edgar forgives
Gloucester for what
has done and protects
him.