King Lear And Oedipus Rex Essay, Research Paper
Term Essay: Final Draft ENG OA May 19, 2000
The agony that occurs in both, King Lear and Oedipus Rex, is really similar. Agony is the act of undergoing an event that is painful or unpleasant. The emotional and physical agony that the characters in the dramas go through are similar. In both dramas, emotional agony is caused by rejection from a household member and by turning lunacy, experienced by the supporters, throughout the drama. The physical agony is similar because characters in each drama are wounded physically as a signifier of penalty. Mental strength was built up in the supporters as a consequence of the decease of their loved 1s. Both characters have inordinate pride. Pride is an overhigh sentiment of oneself. In these instances, the inordinate pride causes the characters to endure because of a drastic ruin.
In the dramas, King Lear and Oedipus Rex, both supporters suffer from rejection by their households. King Lear suffers by the prevarications that his girls tell him. Lear wants to hear the words of love from his girls. If they prove to love him plenty, so they will be rewarded tierce of his land and a palace upon his retirement from the Crown. His girl, Goneril, speaks her words of love to him:
Sir, I love you more than words can exert the affair ;
Dearer than eye-sight, infinite, and autonomy ;
Beyond what can be valu vitamin D, rich or rare ;
No less than life, with grace, wellness, beauty, honor ;
every bit much as child vitamin E Er lov vitamin D, or father found ;
A love that makes breath hapless address enable ;
Beyond all mode of so much I love you.
Goneril s blandishing address is successful in respects to her male parent. She was rewarded tierce of his land and a palace. She causes emotional agony to Lear because he believed that Goneril loved him so in a heartfelt way when in actuality her love was all a fraud. Her address was said to inherit his assets and so to destruct her male parent s authorization. Goneril s address has caused enduring to Lear because it was all a prevarication. Goneril was the first to ache the feelings of her male parent by directing Lear s loyal retainer, Kent, to the stocks to be punished for supporting the King Lear. The sight of Kent in the stocks hurts Lear because his girl is non demoing her love towards him by penalizing Kent. If Goneril s love for Lear were echt, she would non hold thrown Kent in the stocks. Goneril would hold been happy that Kent stuck up for Lear as her feelings were genuinely heart-felt. Goneril caused Lear emotional agony by doing him experience rejected by throwing Kent in the stocks.
Regan besides made a promising address to her male parent.
I am made of that ego metal as my sister,
And value me at her worth. In my true bosom
I find she names my really title of love ;
Merely she comes excessively short: that I profess
Myself an enemy to all other joys
Which the most cherished square of sense possesses
And happen I am entirely felicitate
In your beloved Highness love
Regan besides succeeds in carrying her male parent into giving her tierce of his land and a palace. Regan, like Goneril, wants her male parent to be stripped of his authorization. Regan s Acts of the Apostless of evil towards her male parent are shown throughout the drama. Goneril and Regan both take away Lear s knights to do him old and useless. Regan contributes to the emotional agony of Lear by locking him out of her palace. The fact that Regan and her hubby Cornwall locked him out of her palace was bad plenty. To add to their diabolic program they locked Lear out in the center of a storm. Close your doors, my Godhead ; tis a wild dark ( Act II Scene IV ll. 308-309 ) Regan s rejection causes Lear to endure emotionally and physically because of the deficiency of love he is having from his girls.
Lear is non merely the victim of agony because he causes it every bit good. Cordelia suffers when her male parent disowns her. Cordelia speaks the truth of her love and receives nil:
Good my Godhead,
You have begot me, bred me, lov d me: I
Return those responsibilities back as are right tantrum,
Obey you, love you, and most honor you.
Why have my sisters hubbies, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That Godhead whose manus must take my predicament shall transport
Half my love with him, half my attention and responsibility:
Certain I shall ne’er get married like my sisters,
To love my male parent all.
She spoke of the less love between her sisters and herself, but she is the 1 who stays loyal to her male parent. Cordelia suffers from rejection because her male parent disowns her as an inheriting girl. Lear left his honest girl out which caused agony to even himself by the terminal of the drama. Lear suffered emotionally by the decease of his most loved girl, Cordelia. A pestilence upon you, slayings, treasonists all! ( Act V Scene III ll. 269-274 ) . Lear and Cordelia have both suffered emotionally.
In Oedipus Rex, Oedipus suffers rejection from his birth household when he I left to decease upon a mountaintop with his pess shackled together. The fact that his parents left him to decease is non the ground of agony. The disclosure of the truth about his parents is what caused him to endure. An Oracle told Oedipus parents that their kid would turn up to slay his male parent and get married his female parent. Oedipus takes the disclosure of the truth really harshly the minute he realizes the truth. He crazily feels that he must penalize himself by tweaking out his eyes. rakes from off her frock / the aureate broachs she was have oning, / holds them up, and pound them home right / through his eyes. Oedipus suffers greatly. Finding the truth about his parents costs him his sight and saneness. Oedipus suffers emotionally because his parents reject him.
In King Lear, as portion of emotional agony in the drama, Lear experiences lunacy turning within him as he ages. His lunacy begins to turn as the drama develops. It begins in the first scene where he denies Cordelia because she does non delight him with words of overdone love. As King Lear, Lear was used to acquiring everything he wanted, but when he wanted to hear flattering words from his favourite girl, he was devastated when she refused:
I lov d her most, and thought to put my remainder
On her sort baby’s room. Hence, and avoid my sight!
So be my sedate my peace, as here I give
Lear s madn
einsteinium is shown because of the refusal. Thou hast her, France ; let her be thine, for we / Have no such girl, nor shall of all time see / That face of hers once more, hence be gone ( Act I Scene I ll. 262-266 ) Lear so brushs Oswald. Oswald acts impolitely towards him and causes him to go ferocious with Oswald. My lady s male parent my Godhead s rogue: you whoreson / Canis familiaris! you slave! you cur! ( Act I Scene IV ll. 78-79 )
The following effusion of lunacy occurs on his escapade out-of-doorss. At this point Lear is cognizant that his head is traveling through a hard clip and he tries to chasten himself. O, allow me non be huffy, non huffy, sweet Eden! / Keep me in pique: I would non be huffy. Upon Lear s reaching at Gloucester s palace he one time once more acts through lunacy. This lunacy occurs when he sees Kent in the stocks. Lear is angry because he does non understand why his girl would throw Kent in the stocks for supporting him.
O, how this female parent swells up toward my bosom!
Hysterica passio, down, thou mounting sorrow,
Thy component s below.
It is non difficult to see that the sight of Kent in the stocks frustrates King Lear because he repeats himself every clip he speaks trusting to acquire an reply. Who put my adult male I the stocks? , Who stock vitamin D my retainer? , How came my adult male I the stocks? ( Act II Scene IV ll. 181 ) These events all take topographic point in chronological order. Each state of affairs is more serious than the other.
Oedipus besides experiences enduring when he finds the truth of his heritage. He found out that he did in fact kill his male parent and get married his female parent. The truth drove him non merely to madness, but to insanity. He could be called insane because he wanted to penalize himself for his actions so severely that he plucked out his ain eyes.
And as this coronach went up so did his custodies
to strike his fonts of sight, non one time but
many times.
And all the while his orbs gushed
in bloody dew upon his face fungus. . . no, non
dew,
The ground he had for tweaking out his eyes was so that he can no longer see his errors, but he can experience them. Sing has already caused him excessively much hurting. Oedipus suffers physically by emotional emphasis.
Wicked, wicked eyes he gasps,
you shall non see me nor my shame-
non see my present offense
Go dark, for all clip blind
for what you ne’er should hold seen, and
blind
to those this hear has cried to see
Oedipus suffered greatly by lunacy when the truth of his heritage comes out. His penalty is the work of a genuinely insane individual. Oedipus suffered emotionally because of his heritage.
In these dramas, both emotional and physical agony occur. Physical agony occurs in King Lear when Gloucester gets his eyes plucked out as a signifier of penalty. Gloucester remained loyal to Lear by non giving any information of the male monarch to Regan and Goneril. I am tied to the interest, and I must stand the class. ( Act III Scene VII ll. 53-54 ) As a consequence of his trueness, Cornwall plucked out his eyes: See t shalt 1000 ne’er. Fellows, hold the chair. ? Upon these eyes of thine I ll set my pes. ( Act III Scene VII ll. 77-78 ) This event cause Gloucester to endure physically because he will populate the remainder of his life with no sight.
In Oedipus Rex there is besides an incident of physical agony where eyes are ripped out as a signifier of penalty. In this instance, Oedipus stabs his ain eyes out because he is so devastated that he married his female parent and killed his male parent. He suffers physically because he is informed of his birth parent s individuality:
Lost! Ah lost! At last it s blazing clear.
Light of my eyes, good-bye my concluding regard!
My birth all sprung revealed from those it
ne’er should ;
myself entwined with those I ne’er could ;
and I the slayer of those I ne’er would.
The desolation causes the physical agony in Oedipus Rex, but it is similar to King Lear because eyes are plucked in both dramas as a signifier of penalty.
Another signifier of physical agony in the two dramas is decease. In King Lear Cordelia dies. She is murdered by the order of Edmund. Edmund s deceasing words seems to bring out the secret plan. He tells Albany and Kent that Cordelia was to be hanged in prison. Lear enters with her dead organic structure in his weaponries:
Howl, ululation, ululation, ululation! You are work forces of rocks:
Had I your linguas and eyes, I d utilize them so
That heaven s vaults should check. She s gone everlastingly.
I know when one is dead, and when one lives ;
She s dead as Earth. Lend me a looking-glass ;
If that her breath will mist or stain the rock,
Why, so she lives.
The physical decease of Cordelia s hanging in prison caused emotional agony to Lear. Lear s emotional agony was overcome when he killed the adult male that hanged his darling girl:
A pestilence upon you, liquidators, treasonists all!
I might hold sav vitamin D her ; now she s gone for of all time!
Cordelia! Cordelia! Stay for a while. Hour angle!
What is t thou sayst? Her voice was of all time soft,
Gentle and low, an first-class thing an a adult female.
I kill d the slave that was a hanging thee.
The justification that Lear felt by the retribution of his girl set him free of emotional perturbation. Lear s agony faded as he died a happy adult male.
In Oedipus Rex the physical agony of Jocasta s decease brings Oedipus to a extremum of emotional stableness. He finds his married woman and female parent hanging in a room after the truth of the Oracle s narrative was revealed. And there we saw her hanging, twisted, tangled ( Oedipus p.73 ) The decease of Oedipus beloved female parent and married woman caused emotional agony until he plucked out his eyes. He plucked out his eyes so that he would non be able to see his approaching errors. The physical agony of Jocasta s decease helped Oedipus out emotionally.
Suffering in the dramas, King Lear and Oedipus Rex, is really similar in ways of emotional agony along with physical agony. The emotional agony consisted of household rejection and lunacy of the supporter. The physical agony was the tweaking out of eyes and besides the deceases of the supporter s loved 1s. The physical agony of the characters hurt them right off, but when they had clip to recognize what had happened they learn and become more cognizant of ways to break themselves in the hereafter.
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