The Subplot

• In this final act, we are told that Glocester has died of a heart attack when poor Tom revealed himself to be Edgar along. Gloucester was so happy he died. Shakespeare creates and holds tension by having Edgar explain this instead of having the readers experience it. It creates tension as the readers are waiting and wondering what happened to Gloucester and when we are told he has died the tension releases and this results in a feeling of catharsis.

• Not speeding up the plot in the play could also cause the play to drag on longer, resulting in the audience losing care for the characters and reducing the emotional effect of the climax. Edgar has proven to be an honest and ‘trustworthy’ character throughout the play, meaning the audience automatically trusts Edgar’s explanation of what happened to Gloucester. Having someone like Edmund explaining this would cause the audience to be more likely to question it as he has given us reasons not to trust him throughout the play.

• Gloucester is a tragic hero as he reacted with ignorance to Edmunds schemes and immediately banished Edgar without a second thought. This is an example of his blindness. Gloucester mirrors king lear as they both made rash decisions. As the play went on the Edgar-Edmund-Gloucester subplot mirrored the main plot more; raising the stakes and allowing the reader to see that the tragic-hero demise isn’t an isolated incident and cause the reader to wonder what their own fatal flaws could be.

Animal References

“No, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison. We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage.”

“No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life and thou no breath at all?”

• The Elizabethan Great Chain of Being is related to the first quote through the idea of a dog, horse and rat having humans have no life. In order the humans to be suffering more than animals such as dogs horses and rats they must have sinned greatly and therefore have their status reduced. However, in the case of King Lear, the reader feels sorry for him as we care about his fate and believe that he didn’t deserve to die for his sins. The second quote represents the idea that if they stay together they will have the freedom of birds singing (happy) even while they are caged.

The Villains Greed

• The seven deadly sins are pride, avarice, envy, wealth, lust, gluttony and sloth. Each of these can be applied to the tragic heroes fatal flaw. Throughout the entire play, the deaths of characters can represent one of these sins. Lear and Gloucester pride and wrath, Cordelia pride, Edmund lust.

• Goneril, Regan and Edmund begin as sympathetic villains, however, they do not remain this for the entire duration of the play. Each of them begins the play as the ‘unfavoured’ children and lead the reader to believe that they have been neglected or disadvantaged by each of the plays tragic heroes. This means that we understand why they act out so horribly against their parents. However, as greed gets the better of them they come to treat their parents badly and continue to want more as the power gets to their head. And the audience no longer sympathises with their motives as they continue to cause chaos for no apparent reason other than their own personal gain.

Lears End

• Lear’s fate is worse than death as before his death he witnesses his entire family die. This means that everyone Lear has cared about throughout the play is dead, and he has no genes able to continue. This is then followed by the final act of his own death. A tragic hero must face a fate worse than they deserve, termed by Aristotle as a ‘nemesis.’ Lear suffering through the death of his whole family and everyone he cared about before dying himself can be termed as a true nemesis as, despite his wrath and temper, this was much worse than what we would expect to be deserved as his punishment. This allows the audience to feel for the character and also see someone else who has it worse than they do in their own struggles.

As Lear dies Kent says: “Vex not his ghost. O, let him pass! He hates him that would upon the rack of this tough world stretch him out longer.”

• In this line, Kent is expressing the way that Lear deserves death, as he has been through so much and finally deserves some rest from the storm that has been going on in his brain throughout nearly the entire length of the play. As all of his family and those he cares about are dead there is no point him remaining on the Earth, and he might as well die too to be released from his suffering.

A Tragic Heroine

Cordelia was not written as a tragic heroine but her fate mirrors that of Aristotle’s key aspects to what makes a tragic hero.

Requirements for a tragic hero:
Hamartia – a tragic flaw that causes the heroes downfall.
Hubris – excessive pride and disrespect for natural order.
Peripeteia – the reversal of the fate of the hero: falling from grace.
Anagnorisis – the moment of self-realisation for the hero.
Nemesis – a punishment or fate the hero doesn’t deserve.
Catharsis – feelings of pity and fear felt by the audience.

Cordelia’s pride at the start of the play stopped her from having the ability to tell her dad how he loved him in order achieve his love and appreciation back and this resulted in the harsh decision to banish her from the kingdom. As he was the King and her father (meaning he had authority over her), this also showed hubris as she was disrespecting the natural order in which she should blindly follow her father’s instructions. Cordelia had a fate she did not deserve. A quote that we can see this in Act 5 is her stating in Act 3 that: “When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down,” showing that she is willing to put aside her previous opinion and pride in order to help her dad, and also her trying to ‘ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live.’ The audience here is able to see that Cordelia has repented for abandoning her dad (despite being banished) and come back to save him to right her mistake. To most, this would show that Cordelia deserved forgiving and therefore like a tragic hero did not deserve the fate of death and knowledge that her dad would also die at the end of the play.

Catharsis

Catharsis is the release of emotions by extreme tension and anxiety/connection being formed with the characters in the play. This allows the emotions to be built up throughout the play and then released at the end, in a way of purging all emotions and allowing the audience to be more content within their own lives. At the end of King Lear the emotions of sympathy, suffering, loss, sadness, anger and unfairness should have been released.

Dramatic irony and foreshadowing throughout the text create tension and frustration within the audience as they start to realise things that the characters themselves don’t know – the audience has knowledge that could save the characters however the characters aren’t aware of this. In the final act when the truth was finally revealed the audience was able to feel the relief that goes along with something such as telling an important secret or expressing emotions, they had been holding in for a long period of time.

The Big Message

There are two lines at the end of the play that summarise the dark and despairing themes which are seen beforehand throughout the whole play.

“All’s cheerless, dark and deadly.” This shows how all things in the play are ending in despair and there is no hope or goodness to be taken from it. This is important for the tone of the play as while there was a moment of hope there was no real positive outcomes.

“The weight of this sad time we must obey, speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” This line is a warning of the text to the audience in saying the truth of your opinion and what you feel, pointing out wrongs in both others and yourself and not only speaking because you feel you should. This idea of honesty and standing up for yourself could completely avoid many of the miscommunications and hardships that were shown in this play – especially in the theme of communication within a family dynamic.