King Lear Essay
King Lear—Essay (Act III, Scene 2)
The Storm in Lear’s life
KING LEAR
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, and germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
.
.
KING LEAR
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!
Shakespeare's tragedy “King Lear” is a detailed description of the consequences of one man's decisions. This fictitious man is Lear, King of England, whose decisions greatly alter his life and the lives of those around him. As Lear bears the status of King he is, as one expects, a man of great power but he surrenders all of this power to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him. This untimely abdication of his throne results in a chain reaction of events that send him through a journey of hell. In the selected passage, which is a resulting event of Lear giving his kingdom to his two ‘pernicious’ daughters, Lear is out on the heath facing the storm after being treated abusively by Regan and Goneril. One can say that the major theme depicted in this passage is the natural and unnatural. Shakespeare paints the character of King Lear in vivid detail and puts this character through a series of life-altering events. By
The Storm in Lear’s life
KING LEAR
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!
You cataracts and hurricanes, spout
Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks!
You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,
Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts,
Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,
Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world!
Crack nature's moulds, and germens spill at once,
That make ingrateful man!
.
.
KING LEAR
Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters:
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;
I never gave you kingdom, call'd you children,
You owe me no subscription: then let fall
Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man:
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join'd
Your high engender'd battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O! O! 'tis foul!
Shakespeare's tragedy “King Lear” is a detailed description of the consequences of one man's decisions. This fictitious man is Lear, King of England, whose decisions greatly alter his life and the lives of those around him. As Lear bears the status of King he is, as one expects, a man of great power but he surrenders all of this power to his daughters as a reward for their demonstration of love towards him. This untimely abdication of his throne results in a chain reaction of events that send him through a journey of hell. In the selected passage, which is a resulting event of Lear giving his kingdom to his two ‘pernicious’ daughters, Lear is out on the heath facing the storm after being treated abusively by Regan and Goneril. One can say that the major theme depicted in this passage is the natural and unnatural. Shakespeare paints the character of King Lear in vivid detail and puts this character through a series of life-altering events. By