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king Lear key themes - Coggle Diagram
king Lear key themes
Family unity/ loyalty
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Lear misreads Cordelia's understated, but true, devotion to him so renounces his "parental care"
Driven by greed and ambition, Goneril and Regan fail to show any solidarity with their sister
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initially ally with each other, but eventually turn on each other
Edmund's conspiracy to mislead Gloucester to break off Edgar provides a foil to the Lear family situation throughout the play
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Fatherhood serves as a metaphor for kingly leadership, while the narrative regarding the disintegration of families parallels the disintegration of the British state.
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Authority and order
At the beginning, Lear is an authority figure, embodying order and commanding it from his followers
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Lear appeals to the idea of divine justice when his children treat him unjustly, Similarly, Gloucester calls the Gods when he has been blinded
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nature seems to mirror the political chaos of the play, particularly in the storm, the former embodiment of order in the kingdom, rages in his own madness.
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idea of social mobility and people moving up and down the chain of being as their wheel of fortune turns
old age
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Lear has a sense that old age forces the individual to remember their animal aspect— humans are subjected to the forces of physical nature and have physical needs.
Age, as the sisters observe and mock, brings a kind of weakness with it.
Yet, together with the father-child bond, it is suggested that age should command respect.
Lear's daughters abuse him for being old, making their cruelty seem all the worse and indicating that all they care about is power, without thought to wisdom.
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fooling and madness
the Fool is probably the character with the greatest insight into the consequences of Lear's misjudgments- only competition is Kent
the Fool recognizes (when he calls Lear a fool and reduced to nothing" that by giving up his authority Lear is essentially ensuring his own destruction and the destruction of his kingdom.
Fool's nonsensical comments contain some of the most sensible advice that Lear receives, Lear himself gains increasing insight into his situation as he moves into madness.
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In a world does not seem to make sense—with death, storms and children who turn against parents—it makes sense that madness might be the most sane reaction.
adopting the mad manner of a bedlam beggar, Edgar provides a counterpoint to Lear's uncontrollable madness
Human nature
characters are placed in physical nature, outside of society, to explore human nature
what happens to a human when divested of everything that seems to signify status and authority of humanity
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Cordelia is redemptive of her nature as hr is sent away in disgrace but by staying true to her beliefs comes back in success
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blindness/ inisght
the errors that King Lear and Gloucester make in misjudging their children constitute figurative blindness
the language of the play resounds with references to eyes and seeing. Cornwall and Regan make these images and metaphors of (failed) vision brutally literal when they blind Gloucester
Gloucester serves as a walking reminder of the tragic errors of blindness. Gloucester's insight into the character of his sons after he is blinded shows literal blindness ironically produces insight. Only when Gloucester is blind can he see things for what they are.
Characters call upon, the gods, who with the heavens suggest order and eventual justice
they become a kind of audience, and like the audience, they see the story of what is happening more completely than the characters on stage and can't seem to do anything to stop it.