King Lear Essay - 'I am a man more sinn'd against than sinning'. How far do you agree with Lear's statement
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Course
King Lear
Institution
CIE
An extremely deatailed A* level english literature essay about the character of Lear in King Lear. Good for practice, essay ideas, quotes and exmple of what top level analysis looks like.
‘I am a man more sinn’d against than sinning.’ How far do you agree with Lear’s statement?
Lear is arguably one of the most complex characters written by Shakespeare. Should we as
the audience love him, fear him, pity him, or mock him? The constant changes and
adaptations to Lear’s character as the events of the play unfold cause us to question who
Lear is. Hero or Villain. More sinned against or sinning. However, by the end of the play, we
are compelled to feel pity and sadness towards Lear. This is the genius of Shakespeare in
that he can take a character like Lear who possess some of the most unredeemable features
and turn him into a martyr, a hero, and most importantly a human.
Lear is designed by Shakespeare in the shape and form of a classical tragic hero. Around the
time that King Lear was firs performed Aristotle’s works were very popular and his analysis
of the tragic Hero and the hamartia, which led them to their tragic end, influenced many
16th/17th century literature works and can clearly be seen in Shakespeare’s creation of King
Lear. The same hubristic nature that led to the fall of many tragic heroes from Ancient
Greece is the very same nature we see present in Lear. From the very first scene it is clear to
us as he makes the foolish mistake of dividing his kingdom and banishing Cordelia and Kent.
Kent warns Lear to check ‘This hideous rashness’ and Lear warns Kent not to get between
‘the dragon and his wrath’. The semantic field of beasts and animals present in the
metaphoric line foregrounds a connection between man and beasts and sheds light on the
idea that man and beasts are one in the same, in that they are both led by the impulses and
savageness of their nature. This is a very powerful image because it is this innate nature that
leads beasts to violence. It is this same idea that encompasses Lear as a tragic hero because
we see that Lear is led by the innate hubristic nature, which leads to violence and the death,
of not only himself but his entire family. Shakespeare uses Lear as one of the characters in
which he can present human nature at its worst. It is this same flawed nature that is spoken
about by Goneril and Regan at the end of the first scene. Goneril and Regan both state that
they cannot blame on his age the ‘long-engrafted condition’ he has, referring to Lear’s
mental disposition. The compound ‘long-engrafted’ emphasises this idea that Lear is unable
to change himself and that his rashness and cruelty has always been a part of him and as his
daughters put it, not the result of the ‘infirmity of his age’.
Furthermore, through Lear’s interaction with his daughters Lear is presented as a horrible
father. He curses, disowns, and berates his daughters, whenever ‘the rash mood is on’. For
example, Lear’s unthinkable curse he pronounces on Goneril because she requested that he
limits the number of his knights from 100 to 50. If what Goneril says can be trusted, and the
men are ‘so disordered, so debauched and bold, that (her) court…shows like a riotous inn’
then Lear is truly a wicked father. This is similarly argued by R. A. Foakes editor of the Arden
Shakespeare’s third edition King Lear ‘some have seen Goneril in this scene as showing ‘a
calculated venom’, but she may also be played as having a legitimate grievance…she is now
queen of half of Britain concerned with order and rule’. Many directors in their adaptations
of King Lear have chosen to present the knights in just the way described by Goneril, for
example in the 2018 movie adaptation starring Sir Anthony Hopkins, the Knights would
enter Goneril’s palace chanting, shouting, drawing mud from outside and were laughing and
burping whilst she spoke. This concept that Goneril has a legitimate grievance is used to
bring to light the cruelty, violence, and horror of Lear as he calls on nature to ‘into her
womb convey sterility, dry up in her the organs of increase’. Barrenness in 16 th/17th century
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