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Key Issues in King Lear (Identity and inner self ("The nature of…
Key Issues in King Lear
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Family
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Bond between father's and daughters is broken and fragmented, his daughters betray him even after he offers unconditional love
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Identity and inner self
"The nature of Edgar's inner changes, on the other hand, is an entirely different question; whether he possesses what may be called a consistent inner self has been widely debated." (Carrol 426)
"Much of the difficulty in discussing Edgar stems from the series of roles he plays in the middle of the play which seem embodiments (if that is possible) of negation and self-alienation, most cryptically expressed in a string of orphic negatives" (Carrol 426)
"The play's eerie calculus transforms these negatives into the positive assertion of identity that Edgar makes to Edmund at the end of the play: "My name is Edgar, and thy father's son" (V.iii.169)-and yet even this positive assertion is characteristically ambiguous" (Carrol 426)
"We will never be able to explain everything about Edgar-the mystery of things is too great in his case-but his role in the play becomes clearer when we look more closely at his disguise as Poor Tom, the Bedlam beggar, and when we realize that the play's persistent interrogation of the human body's place in the natural and social orders is culminated in Poor Tom's suffering body. We will also see how a link between Poor Tom and Edmund helps clarify Edgar's situation in the play." (Carrol 426)