The theme of relationship in King Lear and a comparative piece between Lear and Pride

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.