Sunday, August 18, 2019
Chaos In William Shakespeares King Lear :: essays research papers
A device which Shakespeare often utilized to convey the confusion and chaos within the plot of his plays, is the reflection of that confusion and chaos in the natural environment of the setting, along with supernatural anomalies and animal imageries. In King Lear, these devices are used to communicate the plot, which is summarized by Gloucester as:      …This villain of mine comes under the prediction: there’s son against father. The King falls from bias of nature: there’s father against child. (Act 1, Sc.1, 115 - 118) The “bias of nature'; is defined as the natural inclination of the world. Throughout the play King Lear, the unnatural inclination of nature, supernatural properties and animal imageries are used by Shakespeare to illustrate the chaotic state of England, which was caused by the treacheries of the evil characters.      Gloucester is a character in the play who firmly believed that man’s fate has supernatural properties that are controlled or reflected by the heaven and stars:      These late eclipses in the sun and moon                Portend us to no good. Though the wisdom of                nature can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds                itself scourged by the sequent events. (Act 1, Sc. 2, 109 - 113) This is proclaimed by Gloucester as he is told by Edmund of Edgar’s supposedly treacherous plot to remove him from power. Gloucester’s trust in Edgar faltered as a result of Lear’s irrational banishment of Cordelia and Kent, coupled with recent anomalies in the heavens. Gloucester believed that Lear’s actions also came as a result of the star’s unusual behaviour. Edmund, the treacherous and bastard son of Gloucester, exploits Gloucester’s blind believe in the stars in his plot to oust Edgar out of the inheritance and ultimately to gain all of Gloucester’s wealth and land:      This is the excellent foppery of the world, that when we are sick in fortune (often the surfeits of the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treacherous by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. (Act 1. Sc. 2, 125 - 133) As a result of the irrational acts of trust by Lear and Gloucester, the state of England crumbled due to corruptness and treachery of Regan, Goneril and Edmund. At the point of ultimate chaos, Lear is disdained by his two evil daughters and has none of the power and honour of his kingship, and the state of nature reflects this chaos in the form of a tumultuous storm:
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