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Thesis King Lear is highly relevant today because the transfer of power…

- - - - Textual Evidence From Lear :
        "Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters./I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness./ I never gave you kingdom, called you children;/ You owe me no subscription. Then let fall/ Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave,/ A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man./ But yet I call you servile ministers,/ That have with two pernicious daughters join/ Your high engendered battles 'gainst a head/ So old and white as this. O, ho, 'tis foul!"(3.2.13-26)
        
        Quotation Explanation and Connection
        
        Lear sees himself as a victim of injustice, as his daughters have betrayed him
        
        Lear is caught out in a storm where he accuses the storm for siding with his daughters, feeling as if the world is against him
        
        Lear never once takes account for his actions, rather blaming others for his own problems and his eventual, imminent downfall
        
        He expects the storm to take pity for being a poor, weak, and despised man who is falling victim to women (this is seen as a negative thing where women should not overstep on a man)
    - - Trump is a white man that is a part of the majority group in our society
        
        Trump begins to feel powerless and threatened when minority groups are standing against him and his power is taken from him
        
        Narcissistic rage, anger, and aggressive behaviour
        
        Textual Evidence From Lear
        "O let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!/ I would not be mad./ Keep me in temper. I would not be mad." (1.5. 38- 42)
        
        Quotation Explanation and Connection
        
        Lear's mind begins to deteriorate as he struggles with the consequences of giving up his power
        
        His sanity was kept in tack by being King, and without that title, he is slowly losing himself
        
        This shows that without his power he is ultimately nothing
        
        Both Lear and Trump personally cannot survive without power and lash out as a result of losing it, then deeming themselves as the victim
        
        Both Lear and Trump feel threatened when another questions or takes away their power. Trump's is with racial minorities, while Lear's is with women
        
        Their status ultimately defines them and determines their worth
        
        His associates and previous supporters are turning on him and he feels victimized because his power is minimizing
        
        This is similar to Lear when Goneril and Regan betray their father and he feels powerless
      - His power offered to the United States is corrupting the country and is creating more problems:
        
        “Donald Trump regularly tied America’s problems to others. Immigration must be reformed, he told us, to stop the rapists and drug dealers coming here from Mexico. Terrorism could be stopped by banning Muslims from entering the country. He always faulted others as his privilege entitles him to.”
        This is similar to how Goneril and Regan are corrupted by the power that Lear offers them and results in demise, as Lear divides the kingdom hoping to retain his power like how Trump believes he will "Make America Great Again" with his power
    - - Example #1: Charlottesville protests; a white supremacy rally. They were chanting slogans such as, “Blood and soil!” “You will not replace us!” “Jews will not replace us!," as they believe minority groups shouldn't be higher than they are
      - Example #2: "White lives matter", a counter protest by white individuals to the rise of the black lives matter movement that is meant to restore black right's and equality (seen as an ignorant response by the white group because they have always been dominant/ treated fairly)
  - - - Textual Evidence From Lear:
        Life and death! I am ashamed
        That thou hast power to shake my manhood (1.4.289-292)
        
        Quotation Explanation and Connection
        
        When Goneril strips Lear of his knights (symbolizing power)
        
        Lear has given up his power as King and his knights are his only source of power and authority
        
        Lear cannot believe that a woman has the audacity to tell him, a man, what to do
        
        His declining hold on his power is making him feel threatened when women have more power than him
      - Textual Evidence From Lear
        "Return to her, and fifty men dismissed?/ No, rather I abjure all roofs, and choose/ To be a comrade with the wolf and owl—/ To wage against the enmity o' th' air—/Necessity’s sharp pinch! Return with her?/
        Why, the hot-blooded France that dowerless took/ Our youngest born—I could as well be brought/
        To knee his throne, and, squirelike, pension beg/ To keep base life afoot. Return with her?/ Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter
        To this detested groom. (indicates OSWALD) (2.4. 202-212)
        
        Quotation Explanation and Connection
        
        Lear to Goneril/ Regan
        
        This is when Lear is told to dismiss some of his guards by his daughter's, but he refuses. Goneril and Regan are passing him back and forth to attempt to make him surrender his power
        
        When a woman tells Lear what to do he feels attacked
        
        He would rather be or do the worse possible things: live in poverty, be a slave, kneel before his banished daughter's husband and ask for help, than to obey "this woman" who tells him what to do with the little power he has left
        
        Additional Idea
        
        In the quote, Lear says "return to her," two times
        
        Lear feels so insulted by what his daughter is asking of him that he refers to her as her and not by her respective name
        
        This shows that this pronoun is meant to be a threat to his daughter, to reiterate that she is a woman and he is not which makes him more powerful