King Lear
Structure, characters, and themes
King Lear
King Lear
Goneril Regan Cordelia
Albany Cornwall France
King Lear
Characters
Main Plot
• Primary -- dynamic
– Protagonist, changes through play
• Lear
– Antagonist, character revealed
• Goneril, Regan
• Secondary -- static
– Reflection characters
• Cordelia, Kent, Fool, France
King Lear
Characters
Sub Plot
• Good
– Gloucester, Edgar, change
• Evil
– Edmund, character revealed
– Reflection characters
• Oswald, Albany, Cornwall, servant to
Cornwall
King Lear
Foils
• Character foiling
– Lear and Gloucester
– Cordelia and Edgar
– Goneril/Regan and Edmund
• Plot foiling
– Act 1, sc 1 & Act 5, sc 3
– Act 3, sc 6 and sc 7
King Lear
Motifs and Imagery
• Motifs • Imagery
– Seeing – Insults
– Judging – Foul fiend,
– Flattery madness
– “the worst” – Swearing by Gods
– “unaccomodated – Astrology
man”
– Patience
– nothing
King Lear
• Act 1
Seeing motif
– “Hence and avoid my sight” “Out of my sight!”
– “See better, Lear”
– “If it be nothing, I shall not need spectacles”
• Act 3
– “Pluck out his eyes”
– “I would not see thy cruel nails pluck out his
poor old eyes”
– “I shall see the winged vengeance overtake such
children”
– “See it shalt thou never”
King Lear
Seeing motif
• Act 4
– “I stumbled when I saw”
– “Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again”
• Act 5
– “As for the mercy Which he intends to Lear
and to Cordelia, The battle done, and they
within our power, Shall never see his
pardon”
– “Do you see this? Look on her, look, her
lips, Look there, look there!”
King Lear
Motifs and Imagery
• Motifs • Imagery
– Seeing – Insults
– Judging – Foul fiend, madness
– Flattery – Swearing by Gods
– “the worst” – Astrology
– “unaccomodated
man”
– Patience
– nothing
King Lear
Themes
• Parent/child relationship
• Flattery
• Madness
• Judgment
• Appearance vs. reality
• world view of Renaissance Christian
Humanist and Machiavellian