King Lear Vs A Thousand Acres

Though the actions of Regan and Goneril mirror the king's, in that they banish King Lear, just as he banishes Cordelia and Kent, their sin against their father is worse than his sin against Cordelia and Kent. King Lear bases his daughters' love on superficial characteristics, he banishes Kent and Cordelia – his own daughter – and clings to his pride, not desiring to give up the title "King" even after he has yielded his power to his

In this soliloquy, the audience gets its first glimpse of the character of Goneril. The full spectrum of her greed and selfishness will not be revealed until later, but this is certainly a good sample of her personality. Her profession of love is so large that it seems almost artificial, and it also seems motivated by the fact that possession of land is involved. Still, Lear seems immensely pleased by her statement, and requests a similar profession of love from his other daughter, Regan. She obliges, and in her declaration she tells her father that she loves him even more than Goneril does. Regan emerges from her

Goneril and Reagan try to convince Lear that he is old and incapable and to lessen the number of knights he has protecting him. Lear refuses and heads out of the castle out anger that both his daughters refuse to provide him shelter unless he follows their orders. It is at this event that Lear has realized the error in his choices. Lear’s distribution of power had left him defenseless and that his daughters – as if they were men, were taking full advantage of his self-inflicted disability. And the hierarchy that reigned for centuries of a king over his daughters was now destroyed.

In King Lear, Lear’s conflict of power with his daughters is brought about by his own arrogance, which flaws his judgement and propels his change of heart. When Lear parcels out his kingdom to his daughters, he finds the honesty of Cordelia’s praise to be ungrateful and

Due to this flaw, Lear has given way to the two older daughters to conspire against him.  Lear is finally thrown out of his daughters’ homes and left with a fool, a servant and a beggar. This is when Lear realizes the mistake that he has made and suffers the banishment of his two eldest daughters.  Lear is caught in a storm and begins to lose his sanity because he can not bear the treatment of his two daughters as well as the error he has made with Cordelia and Kent.  Lear also suffers from lack of rest when he is moving all over the place and the thing that breaks him is the death of his youngest daughter, Cordelia.  This suffering can be contrasted with other happier times like when Lear was still king and when he was not banished by his two daughters.

Although both protagonists come from contrasting statuses and time periods, Lear and Holden are alike in the way that they make arbitrary decisions, thus, breeding foolish actions. As a king, Lear carries himself with great pride and dignity; however, it is this power that clouds his vision in making well thought out decisions. In the beginning of the play, Lear decides to divide his kingdom into three-- a section for each daughter. The scene ends unsuccessfully with Cordelia and Kent being banished Lear. When Lear asks his daughters who love him the most, he sees Cordelia’s response as rejection compared to the responses of Goneril and Regan.

Despite the strikingly similar characterizations between King Lear in King Lear and Larry in A Thousand Acres, the path and outcome that both characters go through have different elements. At the beginning of the play King Lear, Lear is insolent and insecure; he wants to hear his daughters tell him how much they love him and how powerful he is. When his youngest and favourite daughter Cordelia does not say what he wants to hear, he banishes her from the kingdom due to his pride, “Hence, and avoid my sight!—So be my grave my peace as here I give her father’s heart from her” (1.4.126-130). As the play progresses, Lear starts to lose his mind, and his madness takes over. His other daughters, Goneril and Regan, are the force behind

In order to gain that power, all three were asked to express their love for him. They falsely show how much they love him and his land. Cordelia says nothing which angers Lear, leading to her disownment. Being the daughter of a king each daughter expects to inherit a great deal of power, land and wealth. The issue arises that because they have been born on to such a lavish life they would not appreciate it as much as someone come from nothing or worked for it themselves.

At the beginning of the play King Lear has more power than anyone else, the feeling of power made him think it was okay to ask his three daughters who loved him the most. When his youngest and favourite daughter Cordelia did not give him the answer he wanted by saying, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth/ I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less” (King Lear 1.1.91-93). he started lashing out. Lear clearly values Goneril and Regan fawning over him over Cordelia’s sincere honesty. Out of pride and anger, Lear banishes Cordelia, as well as Kent for defending her. Lear splits the kingdom in half to Goneril and Regan which leads to the deaths of many people in the play. Throughout the play he becomes increasingly shocked when people do not obey him the way they did before and the lack of respect he receives. With his loss of power Lear often responds to these problems with anger saying things like “My curses on her!” (2.4.138). about his own daughter. By the end of the play he recognizes that he takes responsibility for both his own problems and for those of others. King Lear’s actions were the first step to the plays tragic outcome.

The second contention for Goneril's wickedness stems from her ordering Oswald, a steward, to snub Lear's men, and from her extreme exaggeration of the men's supposedly decadent antics. This argument, however, does not take into account the sentiments of Goneril as a married woman, a lady of the house. In saying, "if he dislike it, let him to our sister," she reveals her intent to use negligent servants as a modus operandus for getting Lear out of her castle and on the road to that of Regan (1.3, 14). The mere act of begrudging a former king some of the luxury surrounding his previous position hardly seems

Another folly displayed by Lear is that of blindness. He is ignorant to the true feelings and intentions of his closest family members. When Regan and Goneril shower him with false praises and declarations of their love, he egotistically believes them and bases his division of the kingdom on their deceitful words. Eventually, however, Lear's heart is broken when their true nature is exposed. Lear repeats his mistake of blindness when he fails to realize that Regan and Goneril are plotting against him. The two sisters deviously agree to "hit together" and take full control of the kingdom (1.1.332). Had Lear "seen" better, he would have realized the true intentions of his daughters and saved himself from tremendous grief.

In these situations, the cast confronts instances of betrayal and eventually self-growth. The story initiates with King Lear’s urgency for flattery, which drives him to commit a decision that instigated the power-hungry course of his daughters. The betrayal of Goneril and Regan caused Lear to separate from his man-made principles and praise those of nature. Besides the change in Lear, the audience also observed Gloucester’s position concerning the legitimacy of his two sons. Societal views were a detriment regarding the rights of illegitimate children, like Edmund. Seeing his brother Edgar conquer all his father’s treasures, Edmund left his praise of nature behind and instead exploited the reliance of status and relationships in his royal family to overcome the laws of society, forming a great deception against his own family.

The most prevailing images in King Lear are the images (metaphoric and actual) of nature. The concept of nature seems to consume the dialogue, monologues, and setting.

As the play progressed Lear's sanity went downhill, but his vision became clearer. When Goneril and Regan would not provide him with shelter during a furious storm, Lear realized that they were the daughters who did not love him. He also began to understand the words of Cordelia from the beginning of the play, he realized that she loved him too much to put into words.

King Lear is a character who displays a great deal of anger throughout the course of the play, he often allows his anger to take over him. A lot of things that are said and during the course of the play are due to Lear’s anger which is a leading factor for his insanity. Lear loses his temper during a love test when his daughter does not give the answer that he was looking for, he disowns her calling Cordelia his, “sometime daughter,” (1.1.119) and gives her share of the land to her sisters. This in turn leads to his insanity because in his blind rage he does not acknowledge the sincerity behind Cordelia’s veiled words; unlike her sisters she does not try to flatter her father in order to receive more land, whereas her sisters have their secrets agendas and do not truly love Lear. In addition to this, King Lear is also enraged when the Earl of Kent who is a loyal follower of Lear, goes against the banishment of Cordelia and speaks up in favour of the youngest daughter. Lear is livid with Kent going against him and banishes Kent, as well reminding him that, “if on the tenth day