РефератыИностранный языкKiKing Lear Essay Research Paper Imagery in

King Lear Essay Research Paper Imagery in

King Lear Essay, Research Paper


Imagery in King Lear (King-Lear)


In the immense amount of writing that William Shakespeare


had done in hiscareer as a playwright and or writer in general there


are bound to besome consistencies and reoccurring themes that make


his writing so popular and interesting. In many cases it ishard to


tell whether the thematic structure that many writers follow is intentional


or not, but it is possible that there is a reasoning for a specific kind


of imagery that a writer likes to outline his/her writing after.


There are dominating images which are characteristic of Shakespeare’s


workthroughout, however in some of the earlier plays they are very


obvious and in many cases intentional. Imagery, as defined by the


Sixth Edition Handbook to Literature, is in its literal sense “a


collection of images in a literary work that may be an object, phrase


or entity.” The Handbook explains that imagery is often not intentional


but seems to be a basis for a look at a deeper meaning of a certain


piece of work. It is important to be aware of certain recurrent images


which are symbolic in Shakespeare such as the use of light and its


components in Romeo and Juliet, disease and how it is used in King Lear


and what I will be discussing in this paper the use of the heart as an entity


and how it is used inthe dramas written by William Shakespeare.


The heart image is seen literally over a thousand times in the


works of Shakespeare with a frequency of almost thirty per play and


mostly in the tragedies. With so many references of the heart used


in the tragedies and the typical time frame used to perform each play,


which was about two hours, the audience might hear twelve to fifteen


heart images an hour and as many as one every five minutes. Of course


there are manyinconsistencies in the allocation of the term within the


plays with King Lear obtaining most of the references.


In King Lear, which seems to have a tragic double plot, the


images referring to the heart cue the reader or audience to the confusion


that is evident in the love between theparent and the child and the


breakdown of the social bonds in whi

ch the play begins. In the play


Lear seems to forget the love that he has always had for his favorite


daughter, Cordelia, whose name itself in Latin means heart. When


Lear offered one-third of the kingdom to his daughter Cordelia she


does not know what to say and cannot explain her feelings when she says:


Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave


My heart into my mouth: I love your


majesty


According to my bond; no more nor less.


(1.1.91-93)


In this we see that Cordelia cannot take the appreciative path


that her sister’s took in order to make their father happy and


confident to leave the kingdom to his daughters. The whole time all


Lear wanted was to be comfortable that the kingdom was going to be


left in good hands. We see a better use of the veracity of he word


(heart) when Lear goes to visit Regan and she will not come out to


greet him.


Lear: O, me, my heart, my rising heart!


but down!


(4.4.56-58)


I am wondering if in this passage Lear is talking of his broken


heart released from the clutches of his daughter or if it represents


his blood pressure that could be raising because of his anger in his


daughter, either way the use of the heart in this instance has a


dramatic foreshadowing affect on the rest of the play. King Lear is


a man who is portrayed as a very compassionate man who lives on the


fact that his trust in his daughters will never be abaded. The betrayal


by his loved ones sets up the impact of the play which in turn shows


how dramatic the use of the heart and all of its imagery components


is for King Lear. At the end of the play when Lear loses his last


daughter Shakespeare leads us to understand that he had lead a life


of war and turmoil and has transformed himself from being a bitter,


crusty, old man into becoming a caring and complete human being. Some


critics say that Lear might have died from a heart attack from all the


stress he had to endure in such a short amount of time. I think he


died from a broken heart from the lossof his daughters, his sanity,


and the peaceful life he so desired during his retirement fromm the


throne.

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