Preview

Edmund's Soliloquy Rhetorical Devices

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
352 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Edmund's Soliloquy Rhetorical Devices
Edmund’s Soliloquy Analysis
In this passage taken from King Lear by William Shakespeare, Edmund the illegitimate son of Gloucester and brother of Edgar, has clear rage for the stereotype he is placed under. Edgar, Gloucester’s legitimate son, will inherit all of his father’s land. By presenting the rage of Edmund Shakespeare carefully takes advantage of effective rhetorical devices in order to promote Edmund’s argument and further his stance on the issue. In this passage Shakespeare makes tactful use of repetition, and ponders multiple rhetorical questions in order to capture the extent of Edmund’s beliefs of jealousy and revenge. By constantly restating and repeating the words “bastard” and “legitimate”, Edmund truly demonstrates all the

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    Another useful device throughout Antony’s speech is irony. Irony is a technique that allows words to express the opposite of their normal definition. Antony used this device because it shifted the public’s perspective. For instance, Antony used irony when he stated: I come to bury Caesar not to praise him. The evil that men do lives after them,…

    • 180 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the “Speech to the Virginia Convention”(1775) Patrick Henry convinced colonist to fight against Britain; he constructed extensive use of three main rhetorical devices in his speech to persuade colonist to go to war and fight for what they truly desire. Presenting his speech in House of Burgesses, Henry sincerely respected his audience to gain their respect and attention to comprehend his urgency.…

    • 382 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Loyalty doesn't run in Edmund's blood. In Act 3 scene 3 Gloucester believes by telling Edmund he's been helping Lear is a good thing. The things he doesn't know is that Edmund is a "snake" and will tell Cornwall this information. The audience knows that Edmund is a "snake" but Gloucester is blind in the mind. When an opportunity is there for Edmund he grab this opportunity and betrayed his…

    • 71 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the speech of Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention, he tries to persuade his fellow peers to think like him. Henry wants them to agree with his idea that war was the only option. Throughout his speech, he structures it to be very convincing, and well written. He plans out the way he presents this speech for this conference to make it compatible to the audience he is speaking to. Henry employs rhetorical devices to get his point across to these people. The devices he embodies within his speech are logos, allusion, repetition, and rhetorical questions.…

    • 577 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    4. In this first scene of the play, how does Shakespeare establish the parallels between the stories of Lear and his daughters on the one hand and the story of Gloucester and his sons on the other hand?…

    • 349 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the play Hamlet by William Shakespeare, the theme of revenge is very palpable as the reader examines the characters of Hamlet himself, as well as Laertes, son of Polonius, and Fortinbras, prince of Norway and son of the late King Fortinbras. Each of these young characters felt the need to avenge the deaths of their fathers who they felt were untimely killed at the bloody hands of their murderers. However, the way each chose to go about this varies greatly and gives insight into their characters and how they progress throughout the play.…

    • 1346 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Through ‘The Tragedy of King Lear’, Shakespeare represents a distinctive voice in which influences the way we perceive the role of power play in our world as it broadens our understanding of the universality and complexity of power play. Compared with the 21st century film ‘Brassed Off’, we are presented with an insight into the various means of attaining power and its ability to uncover the true nature of people within their struggle for supremacy and control. Shakespeare presents 'The Tragedy of King Lear' as the struggle for power and the political and filial machinations that the desire for power can create. Shakespeare focuses the distinctive voice around the central character King Lear who represents a conceited oppressor whose fall from power prompts the downfall of the Kingdom that he once controlled. The main cause of his demise is his failure to understand and possess a clear vision of the people around him. In Lear's eyes, he sees his eldest daughter Goneril’s facade to be a loyal and true expression, 'Sir I love you more than word can wield the matter/Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty', although Lear's inability to see the truth results in his manipulation and the banishing of his loyal acquaintances; his youngest daughter Cordelia and his dear friend Kent. Although Lear can physically see, it is the understanding, awareness and direction that he lacks and is blind to. In contrast to Lear being physically capable of seeing, Gloucester becomes physically blind but gains the form of vision that Lear lacks, and consequently Gloucester evades a corollary comparable to Lear's. Here Shakespeare presents his distinctive voice on power play through the depiction of the manipulation and motivation behind the characters struggle for sovereignty. His clever use of his characters and their relationships allows us to gain an insight into the condition of the human psyche throughout their individual attempts at power and highlights the complexities associated…

    • 1100 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    * After his first confrontation with the witches, Macbeth worried that he would have to commit a crime to get the crown. He seems to have gotten used to the idea of killing because the body counts has risen drastically.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edmund In King Lear Essay

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Edmund feels a desire for the recognition denied to him by his status as a bastard.…

    • 654 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    King Lear's Dementia

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Cited: Shakespeare, William, and Russell A. Fraser. The Tragedy of King Lear. New York: New American Library, 1986. Print.…

    • 1443 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Juxtaposition In Hamlet

    • 1723 Words
    • 7 Pages

    William Shakespeare, regarded as one of the greatest English playwrights of all time, crafted Hamlet, a masterpiece that unravels a corrupt royal family. As the play opens with the death of the Denmark king, the audience is thrown into a world of power and betrayal. Prince Hamlet’s discovery of his father’s murder sets the stage for a creative and engaging story delving into the intricacies of revenge. In Hamlet, William Shakespeare uses the motif of revenge to convey the complexities of human nature rooted in internal conflicts, demonstrating the dangers of revenge. Hamlet’s journey for revenge leads him down an emotionally and internally difficult path swamped in moral dilemmas as he faces the consequences of revenge and the inevitability…

    • 1723 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Like many tragedies, Shakespeare’s Hamlet does not fail to provide readers with tales of fervent, bloody revenge which satisfies the primal impulses of characters in the play, wrought on by unjust murder and a desire for vengeance. With a temperamental demeanor and mercurial mood, Laertes is portrayed in many instances as a brash, near irrational son whose desire to avenge his father’s death leads to both verbal and physical conflict. Even Hamlet himself enjoys his own moments of frustration, slandering his duplicitous and incestuous uncle in private scenes and soliloquies. Unlike many traditional revenge tales, however, Hamlet also illuminates the question of the morality of revenge itself: whether or not the adage of “an eye for an eye” may…

    • 1081 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    The Sanity of Hamlet

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages

    In both Hamlet and King Lear, Shakespeare incorporates a theme of madness with two characters: one truly mad, and one only acting mad to serve a motive. The madness of Hamlet is frequently disputed. This paper argues that the contrapuntal character in each play, namely Ophelia in Hamlet and Edgar in King Lear, acts as a balancing argument to the other character's madness or sanity. King Lear's more decisive distinction between Lear's frailty of mind and Edgar's contrived madness works to better define the relationship between Ophelia's breakdown and Hamlet's "north-north-west" brand of insanity. Both plays offer a character on each side of sanity, but in Hamlet the distinction is not as clear as it is in King Lear. Using the more explicit relationship in King Lear, one finds a better understanding of the relationship in Hamlet.…

    • 1831 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Hamlet Madness

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The irony Shakespeare exploits in both Hamlet and Lear is that, while characters dissembling madness feature in both, so does the idea that madmen lack hypocrisy and speak the truth. Hamlet’s apparent madness allows him to blurt out truths and shrewd aphorisms along with nonsense, causing Polonius to say, ‘Though this be madness yet there is method in’t’, and ‘How pregnant sometimes his replies are – a happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of’.…

    • 347 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Sacrifice In King Lear

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page

    Sacrifices are usually made for the greater good; yet, in Edmund’s case, his sacrifices were his undoing. In The Tragedy of King Lear by William Shakespeare, the reader sees how Gloucestor’s love was blinded to Edmund’s flaws, which were cleverly hidden under fraudeulent flatter, supercilious smiles, and a dashingly handsome brow. Edmund sacrifices his relationship with his father, his friendship with Edgar, and even Gloucester’s life to obtain the wealthy, powerful title he felt he had always deserved. Edmund’s betrayal throughout The Tragedy of King Lear shows that no only does Edmund value his personal success more than anything else, but also how power-hunger can kill leaders and dishonest can destroy…

    • 112 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays