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A1 Scene 3 - Coggle Diagram
A1 Scene 3
Key quotes
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"Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown, when thou harvest thy golden crown away"
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By day and night he wrongs me; every hour He flashes into one gross crime or other, That sets us all at odds: I’ll not endure it:
His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us
On every trifle.
When he returns from hunting,
I will not speak with him. Say I am sick.
If he distaste it, let him to my sister
Now, by my life, Old fools are babes again and must be used With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused.
A01
Goneril shows her lack of personal regard for her father: she will use her new political power to flaunt the usual order of authority in a parent-child relationship. Strikingly, Lear has already become an agent of disorder, rather than the careful, controlling stage-manager who planned the divestment ceremony in 1.1.
Goneril speaks about the old, and how they should be subservient to the young, in the same terms that Edmund cited in his forged letter. For the time being, she show solidarity with her sister.
At this juncture, both father and daughter bear some fault, but Goneril has led her father to believe that her love for him extends beyond any evidence of bad behavior, and so ultimately, she is responsible for Lear's actions, having earlier endorsed them.
Also noteworthy is the fact that Lear has been hunting, as the sounds of the hunting horns in the distance indicate. The king may be an old man, as Goneril states, but he is not infirm; nor is he idle, as she accuses him of being. Lear is obviously in good physical shape, even if not as mentally alert as he might have been in his younger years.
as Lear’s host, Goneril has a duty to protect her father and behave graciously towards him. Instead, she prepares to subvert his authority. Throughout this scene her tone is assertive and uncompromising; she insists that she is the wronged party, suggesting that the balance of power is shifting from Lear to his daughters.
Key themes
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old age
Goneril becomes frustrated with her father, Lear, and complains about elderly people regressing to infancy. This corroborates Goneril's selfish qualities and conflicted with Lear's generosity. Shakespeare presents her as opportunistic, motivated by self-advancement rather than genuine love. Goneril's comment on old age and the concept of "old fools" highlights the cyclical model of time and how age can mimic insanity.
Character
Goneril
Goneril complains to her steward Oswald about her father, who apparently hit one of the servants and "upbraids us/On every trifle".
She also complains about his knights, who she says "grow riotous" and are causing trouble in her household.
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Goneril treats her father with particular cruelty and callousness, not with the love and adoration she professed in order to gain control of half of his kingdom.
Oswald
As Goneril's servant, he accepts her orders without question.
Although he is warned, he refuses to abandon his orders to murder Gloucester, since obedience and position are everything to this servant.
Oswald's relationship with Goneril gives him authority to treat the king rudely, highlighting the steward's position as more than just a servant in a lady/steward association. The steward runs the household and wants Oswald to act on her authority to avoid any problems caused by his actions.
Relevant context
She defies the hierarchy of nature, which calls for daughters to respect and honor their fathers, and lays the groundwork for the torment she sets in motion for the remainder of her father's life.
summary
Goneril, with whom Lear has gone to live, expresses her anger at Lear and his knights. She orders her steward, Oswald, to inform Lear that she will not see him and to treat Lear coldly.
A05
How seriously should we take Goneril’s complaints about Lear and his knights in Act I Scene 3? It depends partly on how a director chooses to portray the knights in the next scene. It is also worth considering that,
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