ENG LITERATURE A LEVEL - KING LEAR ACT 1 - 3 Summary
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Course
King Lear
Institution
PEARSON (PEARSON)
This document provides a thorough and engaging summary of King Lear, focusing on Acts 1, 2, and 3.
includes Scene breakdown in detail, themes, Critics and Context
SCENE 1: ACT 1 KEY THEMES IN THIS
ACT:
AO5: CRITICS:
STUART:
- Play starts with two noblemen, Gloucester and Kent, discussing that King Lear is about to divide
● Insecurity “Lear would rather have flattery
his kingdom.
● Power and Authority than the truth”
- Kent asks Gloucester to introduce his son. Gloucester introduces Edmund, explaining that ● Betrayal
Edmund is a bastard being raised away from home, but that he nevertheless loves his son dearly. ● Appearance vs. HAL HOLBROOK - “boisterous,
Reality demanding, arrogant. He expects
- Lear, the ruler, enters announces his plan to divide the kingdom among his three daughters. He ● Injustice absolute obedience”.
commands his daughters to say which of them loves him the most, promising to give the greatest
share to that daughter.
RELEVANT CONTEXT TO THIS ACT:
- Goneril and Regan, eager for their share of the inheritance, express exaggerated declarations of ● Kleinian complex: importance of maternal figure in an
love: goneril cant even put it into words “A love that makes . . . speech unable / Beyond all manner infant's life, link to motherless world of king lear, can explain
of so much I love you” & Regan follows her sister’s lead by saying, “I find she names my very some behaviors .The absence of Lear's wife, the queen could
deed of love; Only she comes too short” pg163 reflect the lack of material presence in his life and as a result
- while Cordelia, Lear's youngest and most beloved daughter, refuses to flatter him insincerely. it fosters a sense of insecurity within him leading him to seek
“Love, and be silent,” she says to herself she says ‘’I love your majesty according to my bond, no validation and love from his daughters in perhaps a
more, nor less’’ pg 164 desperate attempt to fill the void left by his wife's absence.
● Links to Electra complex - the unconscious desire of girls to
- In anger, Lear disowns Cordelia and divides her share of the kingdom between her two sisters. replace their mother and win their father's romantic love
‘’Better thou hadst not been born than not to have pleased me’’ - pg 174
● Great Chain Of being: a strict, religious hierarchical structure
- The earl of Kent, a nobleman who has served Lear faithfully for many years disagrees with the of all matter and life, believed to have been decreed by God. -
king’s actions. Kent tells Lear he is insane to reward the flattery of his older daughters and disown Causes disruption in order. Lear splitting up his kingdom and
Cordelia, who loves him more than her sisters do. Lear turns his anger on Kent, banishing him giving it away to his daughters reflects him relinquishing his
from the kingdom. authority and power. As a result there is disruption to natural
order causing chaos. E.g Lear's mental decline and insanity
- The king of France and duke of Burgundy are at Lear’s court, awaiting his decision as to which of
them will marry Cordelia. Lear calls them in and tells them that Cordelia no longer has any title or ● Inspiration of story- real life- Sir William Allen
land. Burgundy doesn't want to marry cordelia anymore, but France is impressed by Cordelia’s Allen divided property between daughters and ended
honesty and decides to make her his queen. Lear sends her away without his blessing. He says disastrously by being treated badly by all. Contrasts to the
‘’ have no such daughter, nor shall ever see that face of hers again’’ - pg 176 way Cordelia treated lear.
● Grace Wildgoose - she tried to have her father Brian Annsley
- Goneril and regan plot against their father and still want to reduce his power. declared as insane. She and her sisters tried to control his
Lear’s unreliability in his old age: the “infirmity of his age” and his “unconstant starts” evoke estate by proving he was unfit to manage it. Shakespeare
images of senility/decline and suggest that his daughters ought to take control from him, just as would have heard about this story when it was big news in
Edmund is taking control from Gloucester. Pg 178 1603–4. This real-life scandal probably gave Shakespeare the
idea of making Lear go mad.
, SCENE 2: ACT 1 KEY THEMES IN THIS ACT:
● Insecurity
- Edmund enters and delivers a soliloquy expressing his dissatisfaction with society’s ● Blindness
attitude toward bastards. ● Father and children
‘’The curiosity of nations to deprive me….Lag of a brother? Why 'bastard'? Wherefore ● Authority and order
'base'?".....’’base’’ - pg 180 Edmund expresses his resentment towards the societal ● Societal norms
norms that discriminate against him for being a bastard, setting the stage for his
rebellious and manipulative nature. The use of the repetition of ‘base’ is also plosive
emphasising his anger and frustration towards why society treats people like him so A05 - CRITICS:
lowly. During this soliloquy the text format shifts to prose. There is also the use of ARNOLD KETTLE – Edmund “is intelligent,
rhetorical questions. active and ruthless. His immediate personal
motive is simple” he wants power.
- He bitterly resents his legitimate half-brother, Edgar, who stands to inherit their
father’s estate. ‘’Legitimate edgar i must have your land’’ - pg 180 J. DOVER WILSON- To Edmund (and also to
Goneril, Regan and Cornwall) 'Nature' is a
- Edmund has forged a letter from Edgar that he hopes will make his ‘invention thrive’.
Gloucester arrives and believes that Edmund is trying to hide the letter from him. force encouraging the individual to think only
Gloucester insists on reading the letter and finds a plot suggesting that Edmund work of the fulfilment of his own desires.’’-
with Edgar to get rid of their father and share his wealth. Edmund tells his father ‘It is
his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in the contents.’ This helps to convince RELEVANT CONTEXT TO THIS
Gloucester that Edgar is plotting against him and that ‘These late eclipses in the sun ACT:
and moon portend no good to us’. When Gloucester has gone, Edmund makes fun of ● The Law Of Primogeniture, a traditional
his father’s superstition, telling the audience ‘we make guilty of our disasters the sun, method of passing on wealth and
the moon, and the stars, as if we were villains by necessity.’ property. Primogeniture meant that the
first-born son inherited the family
- Edgar then arrives and Edmund tells him that their father is very angry with him. Edgar fortune and his father's titles. As an
believes ‘Some villain hath done me wrong’ - pg 189 Irony illegitimate son, Edmund is entitled to
When he is gone, Edmund turns once more to the audience to laugh at his ‘credulous nothing.
father, and a brother noble, / Whose nature is so far from doing harms / That he
suspects none’. - pg 189 ● Born out of wedlock (bastard) deprived
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