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How is anger presented in King Lear? £7.16
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  5. English Literature 2015
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How is anger presented in King Lear?

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Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear,’ portrays the eponymous character’s downward spiral after he splits his kingdom into two, handing it to his daughters who have ulterior motives but banishing his youngest for her inability to express her love for him. In doing so, he faces rejection from his daught...

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  • July 1, 2024
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  • 2023/2024
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Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear,’ portrays the eponymous character’s downward spiral after he splits his
kingdom into two, handing it to his daughters who have ulterior motives but banishing his youngest
for her inability to express her love for him. In doing so, he faces rejection from his daughters and
expresses anger in response. Shakespeare also explores the futility of anger, most prominently in
Lear’s character, who is ultimately hurt by his own anger. Through this, Shakespeare presents anger
in a gendered light, flipping traditional gender conventions. Overall, Shakespeare may be trying to
critique the notion of anger by exploring the consequences and perceptions of it.

Anger because of rejection is discussed as a way of allowing Shakespeare to explore the damaging
consequences of narcissistic parenting. Lear’s anger towards Cordelia in A1S1 due to her inability to
express her love for him causes him to disown her and stopping her from inheriting a part of his
kingdom. He states, “Here, I disclaim all of my parental care,” and refers to her as a “stranger.”
Despite Cordelia being his favourite daughter, Lear is quick to disown her and call her a stranger,
allowing Shakespeare to display the explosive effects of anger. Lear further uses exclamatory
language, telling Cordelia to, “avoid,” his, “sight.” He insults her repeatedly, calling her, “little
seeming substance,” and metaphorically values a, “barbarous Scythian” over her. The exclamatory
and degrading language coupled together in this scene, as Lear also insults Kent for standing up for
Cordelia, emphasises the intensity of anger that comes from supposed rejection Lear felt from
Cordelia. Shakespeare may be providing a commentary on the damaging consequences of
conventional and narcissistic parenting; Cordelia’s show of love differed from her sisters, who used
cliché and almost hyperbolic lines like, “Sir, I do love you more than words can wield the matter,”
that managed to placate Lear and feed into his narcissism. Due to his inability to see past Goneril’s
words and dismiss Cordelia’s silence for hatred, as well as his quickness to anger, Lear disowns her
and places himself in his other daughters’ care, both of whom even acknowledge his, “poor
judgement.” A God-fearing Jacobean audience will also recognise the detrimental impact of Lear’s
anger upon discovering the sisters’ true colours, with Goneril stating that, in Lear’s “infirm and
choleric years,” they cannot permit their father to exercise any real authority. Here, Goneril’s
treachery would be condemned by Shakespeare’s in 1606 for its breach of the Judeo-Christian
commandment “honour thy mother and father.” Thus, Shakespeare effectively explores the
damaging consequences of Lear’s narcissistic parenting as he aimed to find a conventional form of
love from his daughters but disowned Cordelia, whose declaration differed from her sisters, due to
his blindness from anger.

Shakespeare explores the futility of anger in the character of King Lear, who is ultimately hurt by his
own anger. Shakespeare presents a critique on anger by showcasing what anger leads to; in Lear’s
case, he is left in a storm in A3S2 and rejected by both of his daughters. Lear makes a plea to the
storm, saying, “Here I stand, your slave, a poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.” His plea serves
a stark contrast to the narcissistic and arrogant personality he had earlier on in the play. In doing so,
Shakespeare successfully conveys how Lear’s anger in the first act of the play that led him to
disowning Cordelia amounted to nothing. In a literal sense, Lear has also been demoted from his
position as king to a “despised old man,” highlighting the pointlessness of his anger in the play. As
well as this, Shakespeare utilises a semantic field of old age descriptors to emphasise Lear’s
vulnerability, which may have been protected before due to his position as King. His kingship has
essentially been stripped off him because of Goneril and Regan’s mistreatment of him, leading to
him likening himself to a “slave,” now. This further supports the pointlessness of Lear’s anger and
quickness to disown Cordelia earlier in the play. Additionally, Lear shows great insight into the
position he is left in now, which is another contrast to the blindness he has shown in the play,
claiming that he is a “man more sinned against than sinning.” Shakespeare utilises polyptoton to

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