Suffering
- Created by: jessllukes
- Created on: 04-05-15 22:05
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- Suffering
- Introduction
- Suffering in King Lear is intense and relentless, characters are driven beyond the limits of endurance
- Gloucester and Lear especially are overwhelmed by their suffering: G dies of a broken heart and L's greatest agony is when C dies
- Reflected in imagery of the play: L speaks of G&R physically attacking him: G "struck" him with her tongue and her "sharp-tooth'd unkindness"
- According to aristotle, the two emotions an audience should feel are horror and pity: suffering in KL evokes both emotions in the audience.. Inc tragic hero
- Suffering necessary anagnorisis/ redemption
- LEAR: storm scene "Take physic, Pomp; expose thyself to feel what wretches feel" storm is a metaphore for england's suffering as well as Lears
- GLOUC: "I have no way, and therefore want no eyes; I stumbled when i saw" Metaphorical blindness to sychophance has led him to be physically blind
- "As flies to wanton boys,are we to th'Gods; they kill us for their sport" Much like Lear Glouc realises the insignificance of man through his suffering
- Shakespear presents guilt at the heart of all suffering
- Religeous imagery
- "thou art a soul in bliss, upon a wheel of fire"
- Christian ethos underpins the play of forgiveness and redemption
- CONTEXT: reminder to James who made strong convictions about the DROK eg in 1610: "kings are not only God's lietenants upon earth and sit upon God's throne, but even by God himself they are called Gods"
- Religeous imagery
- Evil or bad characters are mostly defined by their ability to pre-mediate and relish suffering
- Let us "hit" together. Connotations of physical violence
- "one side will mock another; th'other too// let him smell his way to Dover" sadistic pleasure
- Good characters are able to empathise with the suffering of others... evoking pathos and cartharsis
- GLOUC "I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his poor old eyes" to regan about lear. Poor = pun evokes pathos in audience (foreshadow)
- Conclusion
- Through suffering, L and G become compassionat, and Edgar becomes strong and fit to rule. Through suffering they achieve heroism.
- The best natures can absorb pain and learn from it, shakespear appears to suggest it is simply man's fate to suffer
- Through suffering, L and G become compassionat, and Edgar becomes strong and fit to rule. Through suffering they achieve heroism.
- Introduction
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