Part A Theme of relationship in King Lear
Relationship is a theme found in this play in various scenes in the play King Lear by William Shakespeare. In this essay I will be talking about this theme and where it is found in this text Act 1.
The relationship between the father and the child portrayed in King Lear isn't made of love and understanding found in a normal father-child relationship that we normally picture. Rather it is a relationship of many faults and imperfections that ultimately leads to tragic events in the play. Act 1 focuses on two father-child relationships, King Lear's relationship with his 3 daughters and Gloucester's relationship with his two sons. Both relationships are seriously flawed in ways such as miscommunication and disaster led by thirst for power of the young and the susceptible fathers. However, most predominantly, the "King Lear" type paternal relationship with his daughters.
In Act 1 scene 1 Lear wants to divide his kingdom into three parts, each for one of his daughters, he does this by choosing to have each daughter express how much they love him, and give the incentive of bountiful and more land to the one that loves him most.This plays a big role depleting the relationship between Lear and his daughters, as this type of father and child relationship is present in both Gloucester's and Lear's relationship with their children. The relationship shown is one primarily a relationship fueled by power and flawed communication between and elders and the young.
The next example of relationship found in King Lear is in Act 1 scene 1 and 2. When Cordelia mentioned she may not state her affection in terms, Lear disowns and relinquishes her, as he certainly does not receive the same public acclamation from Regan and Goneril's speech. Lear and Cordelia's relationship was born by Lear favoring her to her two eldest sisters when she was born, because of this Goneril and Regans relationship with their father is non existent.
My final example of the theme of relationship found in King Lear is in Act 1 scene 5. The relationship between King Lear and the Fool is crucial to the development of the character of Lear and also to many themes in the play. Interweaving insightful commentaries with clever wit and language, the Fool, a loyal associate to Lear, offers an insight into Lear's mind. The Fool effectively gives to Lear a conscience, and highlights his goodness and self-realization as Lear is persuaded to lower himself to the level of another. The play starts with Lear effectively being the fool but gains wisdom and human experiences with the guidance of the Fool and learns humility, remorse and compassion. With the fool, Lear becomes a sympathetic character, identifiable as a human, and less as an ignorant king.
Part B Comparative Essay
In this essay I will be discussing the theme of relationship between King Lear and Pride. Each text reveals the relationships between characters and
their families and how unnatural they are. At
the heart of King Lear lies the relationship between father and child. Central to
this filial theme is the conflict between man's law and nature's law. Natural
law is synonymous with the moral authority usually associated with divine
justice. Those who adhere to the tenets of natural law are those characters in
the text who act instinctively for the common good (Kent, Albany, Edgar, and
Cordelia).
In the primary plot, Lear betrays his youngest
daughter and is betrayed by his two oldest daughters. In almost identical
fashion, the subplot reveals another father, Gloucester, who betrays his older
legitimate son and who is betrayed by his younger illegitimate son. In both cases,
the natural filial relationship
between father and children is destroyed through a lack of awareness, a
renunciation of basic fairness and natural order, and hasty judgment based on
emotions. By the play's end, the abandonment of natural order leaves the stage
littered with the dead bodies of fathers and their children.
In the opening act, Lear creates a love test to
justify giving Cordelia a larger share of his kingdom. Although his kingdom
should be divided equally, Lear clearly loves Cordelia more and wants to give
her the largest, choice section of his wealth. In return, Lear expects
excessive flattery and gushing confessions of love. But instead, Cordelia's
reply is tempered, honest, and reasonable custom dictates that she shares her
love between her husband and her father. Just as soon as Cordelia fails to meet
her father's expectations, Lear disinherits her. At Cordelia's loss, Goneril
and Regan are quick to take advantage. They may have genuinely loved their
father at one time, but they now seem tired of having been passed over in
favour of their younger sister. After Lear states his obvious preference for
Cordelia, the older sisters feel free to seek their revenge, turning the
family's natural order on its ear. At the same time, Lear fails to see the
strength and justice in natural law, and disinherits his youngest child, thus
setting in motion the disaster that follows. Lear puts in place a competition
between sisters that will carry them to their graves.
In a similar father-child
relationship,
the opening scene of King Lear positions Gloucester as a
thoughtless parent. The audience's introduction to this second father has him
speaking of Edmund's birth in a derogatory manner. Although Gloucester says
that he loves both Edmund and Edgar equally, society does not regard the two as
equal and neither does Gloucester, whose love is limited to words and not
actions of equality. According to nature's law, Edmund is as much Gloucester's
son as Edgar is; but according to man's law of primogeniture, Edmund is not
recognized as Gloucester's heir.
In one of the initial pieces of information offered
about Edmund, Gloucester tells Kent that Edmund has been away seeking his
fortune, but he has now returned. Under English law, Edmund has no fortune at
home, nor any entitlement. Edmund's return in search of family fortune provides
the first hint that he will seize what English laws will not give him. Clearly,
Edmund's actions are a result of his father's preference both legal and filial
for Edgar, his older and legitimate son. This favouritism leads to Edmund's
plan to destroy his father to gain legitimacy and Gloucester's estate. Again,
the natural order of family is ignored.
Gloucester rejects natural law and a parent's love for
his child when he is easily convinced that Edgar the son, he claims to love so
much has betrayed him. Gloucester also puts his faith in Edmund's command of
persuasive language, when he rejects the love his eldest son has always shown
him. With this move, the earl demonstrates that he can be swayed by eloquence,
a man-made construct for easy persuasion, which causes him to reject natural
law and the bond between
father and child. Edmund both ignores and embraces natural law. By
betraying his father to Cornwall and Regan, Edmund's self-serving course of
action abandons nature's order and instead foreshadows the Neo-Darwinist
argument for survival of the strongest individual. His ability to survive and
win is not based on competitive strategies or healthy family relationships; instead, Edmund will
take what he desires by deceiving those who trust and love him. Edmund's greed
favours natural law over man's law because natural law does not care that
Edmund is illegitimate. He claims nature as his ally because he is a
"natural" offspring, and because man's law neglects to recognize his
rights of inheritance. But nature only serves Edmund as a convenient excuse for
his actions. His actions against his brother and father are more a facet of
greed than any reliance on natural law.
One might argue that Gloucester's cavalier attitude toward
Edmund's conception mitigates Edmund's actions. When combining this possibility
with Edmund's final scene, in which he tries to save Cordelia and Lear, Edmund
clearly shows himself to be of different fabric than Goneril, Regan, and
Cornwall. In many ways, Gloucester is responsible for what Edmund becomes.
Edmund is as much Gloucester's son as is Edgar. In embracing the man-made laws
that reject Edmund's legal rights, Gloucester is denying natural laws that
would make Edmund and Edgar equal.
Gloucester also acts against nature in rejecting Edgar
without enough proof of his wrongdoing; thus, Gloucester shares responsibility
for the actions that follow, just as Lear's love test results in his rejection
of Cordelia. Both men are easily fooled and consequently, they both reject
natural law and their children. Both act without deliberation, with hasty
responses that ultimately betray their descendants.
At the play's conclusion, Goneril and Regan's
abandonment of natural order and their subscription to evil has finally
destroyed them. The audience learns early in the final scene that Goneril has
poisoned Regan and killed herself. Their deaths are a result of unnatural
competition, both for power and for love. But Lear is the one who set in motion
the need to establish strength through competition, when he pitted sister
against sister in the love test.
For the audience, the generational conflict between
parent and child is an expected part of life. We grow impatient with our
parents and they with us. We attempt to control our children, and they rebel.
When Goneril complains that Lear and his men are disruptive and out of control,
we can empathize recognizing that our own parent's visits can extend too long
or that our children's friends can be quite noisy. Shakespeare's examination of
natural order is central to our own lives, and that is one of the enduring
qualities of King Lear.
Similarly, to King Lear, in Matthew Warchus' 'Pride' has a major
theme of relationships found.
The movie opens with a character who is introduced to the audience as Joe and
he is celebrating his 20th birthday with his mum. As the camera pans out, we
notice that his father is in the sitting room watching TV not paying any
attention to his son on this special day, even though we are not in the house
we can feel the awkwardness. In a normal father-child relationship should not
be filled with awkwardness and be uncomfortable, it should be filled with love
and affection towards one another. The absence of this is clearly felt in this
scene because as watch Joe try interacting with his father it is clear to see
Joe's dad wants nothing to do with his son. This is seen in King Lear when Lear
disowns Cordelia as when this occurs this scene is filled with an uncomfortable
feeling of awkwardness and unlove for his daughter.
Correspondingly to Pride and
King Lear, the theme of relationship is found in Silas Marner. Communities
are constituted by human interaction. Marner and Eppie are a two-person community,
as are Marner and Mrs. Winthrop. Larger communities include the socialites who
gather at the Red House and the men at the Rainbow tavern. Raveloe is a
community as well, of course, as is Lantern Yard. And each of these communities
expresses its own form of social interaction, sometimes just, sometimes unjust.
George Eliot's consistent point in Silas Marner is that the
most rewarding human lives are tied up in honest, caring, and evolving relationships with others.
Silas Marner
is the most obvious example of this theme. His shattering experience at Lantern
Yard leaves him without a feeling of connectedness to a community. Upon
arriving at Raveloe, Marner is treated with suspicion, and he lets himself
become ostracized. For fifteen years he lives a near-solitary life. But even
during this solitude Marner retains some tie to the community. Note that the
reason he initially finds gold ducats so attractive is that they prove his
usefulness to the people of Raveloe: they are cold, superficial, but real links
between others and himself. With the arrival of Eppie, however, everything
changes. His primary link to humankind becomes not a pile of metal coins
stamped with human faces but a living, growing, communicating human being.
Through the social process of loving and caring for another, and receiving love
in return, Marner is integrated into the community. He finds friends; he finds
his past; he finds faith-all through the open bond of human to human.
The relationship of Godfrey and Nancy exemplifies the troubles that can
arise through a lack of healthy community. Although Godfrey believes that all
his cares and woes would disappear if he could only marry Nancy, their marriage
ends up coming short of both their expectations. Eliot is very clear about the
reason for this: Godfrey does
not cultivate
an honest relationship with Nancy. He withholds the troubling secret of
his parentage of Eppie from her for sixteen years. During this time, he does
everything he can to live as though he has no secret, but he is disappointed
again and again when he and Nancy are unable to have a child. Their barrenness
symbolizes their unfruitful, deceptive relationship. When he later asks to adopt Eppie,
he has made himself unable to declare his reason. His innermost feelings are
intensely private, as all secrets must be, so he has become socially maimed.
Keeping so much of himself a secret has made his marriage unhappy. When he
finally does accept his responsibility to come clean about his past, he does
not meet the redemption that Silas Marner did; the result is more
disappointment. For him it is too late to cultivate his ideal community, and he
must resign himself to isolation ultimately he will have to move on to a new
community or family and start over, but even then, can there be another
redemption like Marner's? Godfrey's lack of connection with Nancy, who wants
nothing more than to love him, thus leaves him as isolated as Marner for about
if Marner is isolated.
Ideally, as
in the case of Eppie and Marner, society is a locus of mutual betterment and
honest communication of social values. Eppie helps Marner see himself at his
best; he blooms as she blooms. Other times, though, society reinforces one's
prejudices and closes one's mind. Despite its advantages, community can be
unjust. Some of the villagers of Raveloe are quite caring, quirky, likeable
folks, but they are suspicious, rather ignorant, xenophobic, and racist. They
blame a "swarthy, foreign-looking peddler" on the scantiest of
evidence for the theft of Marner's gold, when the true thief is in fact a son
of the "greatest man in Raveloe." Eliot does not strongly challenge
the dangerous tendency to prefer insiders to outsiders, but she does emphasize
it at times for our consideration. She suggests that human meaning making, for
better or for worse, is caught up in interpersonal relationships. Silas
Marner reminds us of the dark underside of community even while it
generally focuses our attention on community's advantages.
In
conclusion the theme of relationship is found
very clear in these three texts and how each text reveals the relationships
between characters and their families and how unnatural they are.
