LEAR

WW W.H OG AN NO TES.COM

Study Pack One

35 PAGES
 Contents

A Brief Summary of the Play 3

King Lear’s Journey 11
Cordelia 34
Gloucester 42
Kent’s Character 60
The Fool 66
The Plot & Sub Plot 70
Imagery 79
The Storm as an Image, Metaphor or Symbol 84
The Appeal of the Play to a Modern Audience 90
ANIMAL IMAGERY 94
THE STORM 97
King Lear Past Leaving Cert Questions 104

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 2

A Brief Summary of the Play

Act I: Lear’s Abdication and the Fatal Misjudgment

King Lear begins with an old king who, in his desire to retire from the duties of
monarchy, makes a catastrophic decision that sets in motion the tragic events
of the play. Lear’s decision to divide his kingdom between his daughters,
based on how much they claim to love him, showcases his vanity and need
for validation. Lear addresses his court, announcing that he will: “shake all
cares and business from our age, / Conferring them on younger
strengths, while we / Unburthened crawl toward death” (Act 1, Scene 1).
His wish is to retain the title of king but without the responsibilities of
governance.

In demanding that his daughters publicly declare their love for him, Lear
unwittingly invites the betrayal that will lead to his downfall. Goneril, the eldest
daughter, speaks rst. She offers him exaggerated praise, stating that she
loves him “more than words can wield the matter; / Dearer than eyesight,
space, and liberty” (Act 1, Scene 1). This excessive attery pleases Lear,
and he rewards Goneril with a third of his kingdom. Regan, the middle
daughter, follows suit and insists that her love for Lear is even greater, saying
that Goneril “comes too short” in her expressions of love and that she is “an
enemy to all other joys” except her father’s love (Act 1, Scene 1). These
false declarations of love not only demonstrate the daughters’ manipulation of
Lear but also expose his tragic aw—his inability, as result of his hubris, to
discern true loyalty from deceit.
ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 3
fi
fl
fl
Cordelia, the youngest and most beloved daughter, refuses to engage in this
competition of false attery. Instead, she simply states, “I love your majesty /
According to my bond; no more nor less” (Act 1, Scene 1). Cordelia’s
honesty and refusal to embellish her feelings are interpreted by Lear as
ingratitude. In a rash decision, Lear disowns Cordelia, declaring, “Here I
disclaim all my paternal care, / Propinquity and property of blood” (Act 1,
Scene 1). This impulsive act not only severs his relationship with Cordelia but
also foreshadows the tragedy that will unfold as Lear hands over his power
to the disloyal Goneril and Regan.

Lear’s loyal advisor, Kent, immediately perceives the gravity of Lear’s mistake
and attempts to intervene. He pleads with Lear to reconsider his actions: “See
better, Lear, and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye” (Act 1,
Scene 1). However, Lear, blinded by pride (hubris) and “wrath”, banishes
Kent for his de ance. This moment is crucial in the play, as it highlights Lear’s
blindness to those who truly care for him and his susceptibility to manipulation
by those who seek power.

The subplot involving Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar is introduced in parallel

to Lear’s family drama. Gloucester, like Lear, is deceived by one of his
children. Edmund, Gloucester’s illegitimate son, harbours deep resentment
over his status as a “bastard” and begins plotting against his legitimate
brother, Edgar. He crafts a letter that suggests Edgar is plotting to kill
Gloucester for his inheritance. This treachery mirrors the manipulative actions
of Goneril and Regan and serves to further illustrate the destructive
consequences of familial betrayal. Gloucester, easily deceived, declares,
“Unnatural, detested, brutish villain” (Act 1, Scene 2) in reference to Edgar,
believing the lies that Edmund has spun.

Act II: Betrayal Deepens and Lear’s Power Crumbles

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 4

fi
fl
As Act II begins, the consequences of Lear’s decisions become increasingly
evident. Lear, having divided his kingdom between Goneril and Regan,
decides to take up residence with Goneril rst. However, Goneril quickly
becomes frustrated with Lear’s behaviour, particularly the unruly conduct of
the 100 knights that accompany him. She instructs her steward, Oswald, and
her servants to treat Lear and his men with disrespect, hoping that Lear will
leave. Lear, infuriated by Goneril’s “ingratitude” and lack of respect, curses
her: “Into her womb convey sterility, / Dry up in her the organs of
increase, / And from her derogate body never spring / A babe to honour
her!” (Act 1, Scene 4). This curse not only reveals Lear’s increasing instability
but also underscores the destructive nature of his anger, which will continue
to grow as his daughters strip away his authority.

Feeling betrayed by Goneril, Lear turns to Regan, expecting a warmer

reception. However, Regan, who is just as manipulative as her sister, refuses
to host Lear at her home. Instead, Regan and her husband, the Duke of
Cornwall, are visiting Gloucester’s castle, where they prepare to reject Lear
as well. When Lear arrives, he is shocked to nd that Regan is siding with
Goneril. Regan’s suggestion that Lear reduce the number of knights in his
retinue is a direct attack on his authority, and Lear, feeling utterly betrayed,
exclaims, “I gave you all—” to which Regan coldly replies, “And in good
time you gave it” (Act 2, Scene 4). This moment marks a signi cant turning
point, as Lear is forced to confront the reality that he no longer holds the
power and respect he once did.

Meanwhile, the subplot involving Gloucester and his sons intensi es. Edmund
continues his manipulation of Gloucester by further incriminating Edgar,
leading Gloucester to declare his son an outlaw. Edgar, now in hiding,
disguises himself as “Poor Tom,” a mad beggar, and takes refuge in the

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 5

fi
fi
fi
fi
wilderness. This disguise will later allow Edgar to help his father when
Gloucester is blinded.

As Lear’s frustration mounts, he ventures out into the storm, accompanied by

the Fool and the disguised Kent. The storm on the heath becomes a powerful
symbol of Lear’s inner turmoil. He rages against the elements, crying, “Blow,
winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!” (Act 3, Scene 2). In this
moment, Lear’s descent into madness begins. The storm represents not only
the chaos in Lear’s mind but also the chaos that has enveloped his kingdom
since he abdicated his throne.

Lear’s growing madness is re ected in his shifting perspective on justice and

authority. As he wanders the heath, Lear begins to empathise with the poor
and powerless, realising for the rst time how little attention he had given to
the suffering of his subjects during his reign: “O, I have ta’en / Too little care
of this! Take physic, pomp; / Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel ”
(Act 3, Scene 4). This moment of clarity marks a turning point in Lear’s
character development, as he begins to recognise the hollowness of the
power he once held.

Act III: Gloucester’s Betrayal and Lear’s Madness

As Lear’s madness deepens, Gloucester becomes a tragic gure in his own

right. He remains loyal to Lear, despite the king’s downfall, and seeks to
protect him from the wrath of Goneril and Regan. Gloucester reveals to
Edmund that he plans to help Lear escape to Dover, where Cordelia and the
French forces are preparing to restore Lear to power. However, Edmund
betrays his father by informing Cornwall and Regan of Gloucester’s
intentions.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 6

fl
fi
fi
The consequences of this betrayal are brutal. Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril
confront Gloucester at his castle, accusing him of treason. In one of the play’s
most harrowing scenes, Cornwall and Regan gouge out Gloucester’s eyes.
Regan mocks Gloucester’s cries for his son, revealing, “Thou call’st on him
that hates thee. It was he / That made the overture of thy treasons to us”
(Act 3, Scene 7). This revelation leaves Gloucester devastated, as he realises
that it was Edmund, not Edgar, who had betrayed him.

Blinded and cast out, Gloucester is left to wander the heath, where he
encounters Edgar, who is still disguised as Poor Tom. Gloucester, unaware of
his son’s true identity, asks Poor Tom to lead him to Dover, where he hopes to
end his suffering. Edgar, deeply moved by his father’s plight, agrees to guide
him, though he continues to withhold his identity. Gloucester’s blindness
becomes a powerful metaphor for the theme of insight and understanding in
the play. Like Lear, Gloucester is only able to see the truth when he has been
physically blinded.

Meanwhile, Lear’s mental state continues to deteriorate. He rambles

incoherently, speaking of the injustices in the world and the cruelty of his
daughters. At one point, Lear imagines himself on trial, accusing Goneril and
Regan of their crimes against him. This scene highlights Lear’s growing
disconnection from reality, as he becomes increasingly obsessed with the
wrongs committed against him. However, it also reveals a deeper
understanding of the human condition, as Lear re ects on the nature of
suffering and injustice.

① One noble / negative / uplifting / depressing aspect of the human condition

that the play examines is loyalty. ② In particular, Shakespeare provides us
with a deep and accurate understanding of …

Act IV: Reconciliation and the Consequences of Betrayal

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 7
fl
 As the play moves toward its climax, the focus shifts to the possibility of
reconciliation and the tragic consequences of betrayal. Cordelia, who has
remained in France since her banishment, learns of Lear’s plight and raises
an army to invade England. Her love for her father has not diminished,
despite his harsh treatment of her, and she expresses deep sorrow over his
suffering: “O dear father, / It is thy business that I go about ” (Act 4, Scene
4).

Lear, still wandering the countryside, is eventually found by Cordelia’s

soldiers. He is now completely mad, wearing a crown of weeds and speaking
in fragmented, nonsensical phrases. When Cordelia and Lear are reunited,
the scene is one of the most poignant in the play. Lear, now fully aware of his
mistakes, seeks Cordelia’s forgiveness: “I am a very foolish fond old man, /
Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less; / And, to deal plainly,
/ I fear I am not in my perfect mind” (Act 4, Scene 7). Cordelia, ever loyal
and loving, forgives her father, and they are reconciled. This moment of
reunion offers a glimmer of hope amidst the tragedy, as it suggests the
possibility of redemption through love and forgiveness.

Meanwhile, the power struggle between Goneril, Regan, and Edmund

intensi es. Both sisters are now vying for Edmund’s affection, and their rivalry
becomes increasingly dangerous. Goneril plots to kill her husband, Albany, in
order to be with Edmund, while Regan becomes suspicious of Goneril’s
intentions. This rivalry highlights the destructive consequences of their
ambition and betrayal, as the sisters turn against each other in their pursuit of
power.

Edgar continues to guide Gloucester toward Dover, where Gloucester hopes

to end his life. In a moment of profound psychological manipulation, Edgar
tricks his father into believing that he has survived a fall from a great height.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 8

fi
 Gloucester, convinced that the gods have spared him, resolves to live and
endure his suffering. Edgar, still disguised, offers comfort to his father, though
he continues to withhold his identity. This moment highlights the theme of
redemption, as Gloucester, like Lear, begins to nd meaning in his suffering.

Act V: The Tragic Conclusion

The nal act of King Lear brings the play’s various plot lines to a tragic and
violent conclusion. The French forces, led by Cordelia, and the English
forces, commanded by Edmund, prepare for battle. However, before the
battle begins, the focus shifts to the personal con icts between the
characters. Goneril and Regan’s rivalry for Edmund’s affection reaches its
peak, as Goneril secretly poisons Regan to eliminate her as a rival. This act
of treachery further underscores the destructive nature of their ambition and
betrayal.

On the battle eld, the French forces are defeated, and Lear and Cordelia are
captured by Edmund. Despite their defeat, Lear is content to be with Cordelia,
imagining a future where they can live together in peace: “Come, let’s away
to prison; / We two alone will sing like birds i’ the cage” (Act 5, Scene 3).
This moment, though tinged with sadness, offers a brief respite from the
tragedy, as Lear nds solace in his daughter’s presence.

However, Edmund has secretly ordered Cordelia’s execution, and tragedy

soon strikes. Albany, who has turned against Edmund, exposes his treachery
and challenges his authority. Edgar, now revealing his true identity, confronts
Edmund in a duel and fatally wounds him. As Edmund lies dying, he admits to
ordering Cordelia’s death. Albany and Edgar rush to stop the execution, but
they arrive too late.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 9

fi
fi
fi
fi
fl
Lear enters the stage, carrying Cordelia’s lifeless body in his arms. Overcome
with grief, he cries out, “Howl, howl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:
/ Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so / That heaven’s vault
should crack” (Act 5, Scene 3). This moment of devastation marks the nal
blow to Lear’s already fragile state. He desperately tries to convince himself
that Cordelia is still alive, but the reality of her death is inescapable.

Lear’s death soon follows. As he cradles Cordelia’s body, Lear’s heart breaks
from the weight of his grief. His nal words, “Look there, look there!” (Act 5,
Scene 3), suggest a eeting moment of hope that Cordelia might still be alive,
but it is too late. Lear dies, and the stage is left with the broken remnants of a
once-great family.

The play concludes with Albany, Edgar, and Kent left to pick up the pieces.
Albany offers to restore order to the kingdom, but the nal note of the play is
one of profound loss and tragedy. The deaths of Lear, Cordelia, Gloucester,
Goneril, Regan, and Edmund underscore the destructive consequences
of betrayal, ambition, and the failure to see the truth.

In King Lear, Shakespeare masterfully weaves together themes of power,

betrayal, loyalty, madness, and redemption through the complex relationships
between its characters. Lear’s relationship with his daughters serves as the
play’s emotional core, illustrating the tragic consequences of misjudgment
and the ultimate redemptive power of love. The play’s exploration of human
frailty and suffering is both timeless and universal, making King Lear one of
Shakespeare’s most enduring and powerful tragedies.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 10

fl
fi
fi
fi
King Lear’s Journey

“Throughout the course of the play, both Lear and Gloucester are tragic
characters, but Lear develops into the more heroic figure.
Leaving Cert “King Lear” 2016

“Lear's unstable and tragic identity is shaped by a variety of

ambiguities and complexities in his character.”
Discuss this statement, developing your response with reference to
Shakespeare’s play, King Lear.
Leaving Cert “Macbeth” 2023

๏ From the outset we gain a number of insights into Lear’s character.

He is a deeply flawed man. He is an absolute monarch, choleric

by temperament, rash in his actions, hasty and superficial in his

judgements.

๏ However, despite all of this, he is a commanding figure. When we first

meet Lear, it is difficult not to notice the extent to which his language
is laced with imperatives. He is used to wielding absolute authority in
a public setting:

K IN G LEA R : A tte n d th e lo rd s o f F r a n c e a n d

Burgundy, Gloucester.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 11

 G LO UCE STE R : I s h al l , m y l i eg e .

KING LEAR: Meantime we shall express our

darker purpose.
Give me the map there. Know that we
have divided In three our kingdom:

๏ However, his role as King results in him becoming too accustomed to

flattery; he is so insecure that he creates an artificial situation for his

daughters in order for them to state publicly which of them “doth

love [him] most”.

Leaving Cert Deferred 2023

I d e n t i f y wh a t y ou be li e ve to be the three m ost im por tant choices or

d e c i s io ns K in g L ear ma ke s. Di scuss why you believe these choices o r
d e c i s io ns a re i mp or ta n t a n d t h e i nsig hts y o u g a i n i n t o v a r i o u s a s p e c t s
o f L ea r ’s cha rac te r fro m th e m. You m ay refer to any com bination o f
c h o i c e s o r d e c i s i o n s . D e v e l o p y o u r d i s c u s s i o n w i t h re f e re n c e t o
S h a k e s p e are ’s p l a y, K in g L e a r.
re a s o n s w h y L e a r ’s c h o i c e s o r d e c i s i o n s a re
① important include: the development of his
c ha ra c t er a n d/ o r re la ti on s hi p s; th e ad v a n c e m en t/
de v e l o pme n t o f th e plo t; t he ir im p a c t o n o th er
characters/thematic concerns, the conclusion/
res o l ut i o n o f the p la y, et c .

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 12

Leaving Cert Deferred 2023

I d e n t i f y wh a t y ou be li e ve to be the three m ost im por tant choices or

d e c i s io ns K in g L ear ma ke s. Di scuss why you believe these choices o r
d e c i s io ns a re i mp or ta n t a n d t h e i nsig hts y o u g a i n i n t o v a r i o u s a s p e c t s
o f L ea r ’s cha rac te r fro m th e m. You m ay refer to any com bination o f
c h o i c e s o r d e c i s i o n s . D e v e l o p y o u r d i s c u s s i o n w i t h re f e re n c e t o
S h a k e s p e are ’s p l a y, K in g L e a r.
w e g a in i ns ig h t i nt o Le a r’s h u bri s /b l in d n e s s / tr a gic
② na t ure/s e l fis h n e ss fro m h is i m po r ta n t c h o ice s /
de c i si o ns

Le a r’s i ns e c u re a nd r a s h na tu re is e v id e n t in
③ s o me o f hi s i m p or ta nt ch o ic es /de ci s io n s

hi s g ro w th in k no w le d ge a nd j o u r n e y to w a rd s
④ s el f- a w a re n e s s / a g row i n g s en s e o f a ltr u is m /
s o c ia l co ns c i en c e et c c a n be s e e n i n s o m e o f h i s
c ho i c e s/d e c is io n s

we gain insight into the more reflective/

⑤ philosophical/courageous aspects of his
character from some of his final important
c ho i c e s /de c i si on s

His choices shape our understanding of the

pl a y ’s th e m at ic a n d phi l os op h ic a l c o n c e r n s .

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 13

 ➠ Thematic and
Philosophical
Language /
Imagery / Symbols
Opening and
Closing Moments /
Concerns etc tragic resolution
• Are used to great Plot
e ect
• Imagine the play
without the
characters
• Shakespeare uses
• Are important to the
play
• The role of
• Heighten the
dramatic intensity of
the play

๏ ③ ➠ Lear’s decision:

“To shake all cares and business from [his] age;

Conferring them on younger strengths, while [he]

Unburthen'd crawl[s] toward death.”

Is deeply flawed on a number of levels.

๏ ④ ➠ The Love Test which is both artificial and perverse reveals the

king’s staggering blindness, because his entire political strategy

for his retirement is based upon a fundamental misconception
concerning his youngest daughter / love / the reality of ageing / the
nature of reality / his role as monarch / his very humanity / society /
family / the bond between father and child. In other words the
human condition.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 14

ff
 ๏ The pity of it, and also the deep and dramatic irony, is that Lear
does not know how to discern true love from false. He fails to see, in

the words of France, that: “love is not love when it is mingled

with regards that stand aloof from the entire point”; and

consequently, he makes the wrong choices.

๏ Lear’s sins are derived from pride and vanity (hubris); he wants to

give away the responsibility of kingship and still retain his title and

his power.

๏ Consequently, he splits his kingdom, a dangerous thing to do as any

Elizabethan would have known, because it goes against the natural

order of the chain of being which governs the moral framework of

the Elizabethan universe.

๏ So, Lear's character and actions reflect his tragic flaw. (Hubris)

๏ Furthermore, at the beginning of the play, the tone of Lear's

speeches shows that he has never been required to confront the

depth of his own ignorance and the limitations of his authority.

๏ In other words, as Regan points out: “he hath ever but slenderly

known himself.”

๏ He calls on nature, on the “sacred radiance of the sun” “the night”

and “the operation of the orbs,” foolishly believing his authority is

limitless.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 15

 ๏ He is in every significant sense of the word completely blind. This is

why Kent beseeches him “to see better.”

๏ However, the boundless loyalty of people like Albany, Gloucester,

the Fool, Edgar, Kent and of course Cordelia shows us that there
must be qualities in Lear that are worthy of our respect. As their later
actions demonstrate, these characters love the man not the office.

๏ Furthermore, according to Gloucester and Kent’s conversation in Act

I scene i, the shares of Albany and Cornwall have been apportioned

in such a manner so as to avoid a situation where the “curiosity” or

the jealousy of either of the dukes could lead to one of them

preferring the share of the other.

๏ It would seem then that careful thought has gone into the division of
the kingdom and that Lear is genuinely well-intentioned in his wish

to prevent “future strife.”

1
๏ However, his treatment of Cordelia which is spiteful, vindictive

and cruel is very insightful. He publicly humiliates her by

comparing her to a commodity whose “price has fallen.”

๏ In a clear act of injustice, he banishes her in the full knowledge of

what that means.

1 Triadic expressions are very effective because they create emphasis in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 16

 ๏ He places his own selfish needs ahead of the “bond” of family

and nature that exists between them:

B e t t e r t h ou

Ha ds t n ot b e e n b o r n t h a n n o t t o h a v e

pl e a se d m e b e t t e r.

๏ So a t t he b e g in ni ng of t he pl a y, it i s ve r y ob v io u s th at L ea r

i s in g e nui ne ne e d o f reh a b i l i t at i o n .

“Shakespeare explores both the destructive and the redemptive power of love throughout
the play, King Lear.”

Discuss this statement, supporting your answer with reference to the play.
Leaving Cert “King Lear” 2016

๏ The fo r m t ha t t hi s j o u r n e y of ① +② ➠ red emp ti on ta k es i s

very interesting because it provides us with a

pa r a dig m o f th e C hri s t ia n no ti o n o f p il gr i m ag e.

๏ At t he he a r t o f a ny e x plo ra ti o n o f L e ar ’s tr a gi c j ou r n ey i s
i de a t ha t , a l t ho ug h he d o e s n’t d es er v e to su ff er in th e

man ne r th a t h e d oe s, ( he is a m a n “m o re s in ne d a ga in s t

th a n si nni ng, ”) h is s uffe rin g is ne c e ss ar y.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 17

 ๏ L e a r s u ff e r s g re a t l y i n t h e p l a y. G o n e r i l ’s d e c i s i o n t o
emasculate him publicly marks the beginning of his
su ffe ri ng .

๏ O wi ng t o w h a t G o ne r il do es to h im , L e ar ’s a ge i s ex p o se d
a s a so u rc e o f g re at w e a k ne s s . H e is red u c ed f ro m a
pow er ful ki ng t o :

‘ a po o r o l d m an

A s f ul l of g r ie f a s ag e, wre t c he d in

bot h . ’

๏ Wh en hi s a ut hor it y is challenged in a public and vindictive

man ne r, h e c u rse s th e c a l cu l at in g c r u el ty of Go n er i l an d
beg i ns to se e t ha t he w a s w ro ng in tr u s tin g h er e m p ty
promises of love and in making his daughters his

“gua rdi a ns, [ hi s] de p o sit a ri es . ”

๏ H e l e a r ns: “ Ho w shar p e r t h an a se rp en t ' s t o o t h i t is | To

ha ve a tha nk l e ss chi l d! ”

๏ H is i ne ffec t ua l th re a t t ha t he w i ll do ‘s uc h t h in gs [ … t ha t ]

sha l l be | The t e r ro r s o f t h e e a r t h’ m u st b e p ai n f u l to h im

b ec a us e, d e e p d ow n , he m u st re al is e th at it is n o w

a n e m p ty o n e .

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 18

 ๏ Int e re s ti ng l y, a nd v e ry im po rt an tl y, L ea r d em o n str a tes h is
fi rs t si g ns o f re a l i s a t i on o ut s i de G on e r il ’s c as tle .

๏ ④➠ H is a dmi ss i o n t ha t he “di d [ C o rde li a] wro ng” is h ig h ly

si gn i fi ca nt b eca u se i t d e m o n str a tes th at h e is ca p ab l e

of l e a r ni ng f ro m h i s m is ta ke s .

๏ W h e n h e j o u r n e y s t o G l o u c e s t e r ’s c a s t l e , t h e F o o l ’s

pre di c t io n t ha t R ega n w i l l p ro v e j u st a s “ b it t e r ” a s h e r

sister is quickly realised. Much like Goneril, Regan

u n de rs ta n ds he r f at he r a n d kn o w s h is w ea k n es se s.

๏ Ab o ve a l l she und e rs ta nd s h i s te nd e n cy to j u d ge l ov e o n a

m a t he m a t ic a l s c a le.

๏ An d it i s t hi s fo o l i s h n es s t ha t s h e s ets a b ou t ex p l oi tin g i n a
mal i c io u s a n d spi t e fu l m an n er.

๏ Wh en Le a r a p pe a l s t o:

the off ic e s of n a t u re , b o n d o f c h ild h o o d ,

E ff e ct s of c ou r t e s y, d u e s o f g r a t it u d e ;

h is su ff eri ng i s p la i n to se e. H e w e e ps in p u b l ic an d i s

pu sh ed t o th e b r ink o f sa nit y b ec au s e o f h ow th e y “s ha k e

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 19

 his m a nhoo d” a nd s ee m t o h av e f orgo tten h i s k i n d n es s to

th e m.

๏ Fo ll o wi ng Re g a n ’s re du c ti o n o f “ h i s t r a in ” to tw e n ty - f iv e

L e ar d e mo ns tr a te s j us t ho w b li nd he is w h e n s u d d e n ly an d
r a the r p at h e tic a l ly h e de c i de s t o li v e w ith Go n e r il w h o s e:

‘f i f ty y e t d o th d ou bl e fi ve a n d t w en t y, | A nd

t hou a rt t w i ce h e r l o ve ’ .

๏ U lt i m at e ly, o f c o urs e, b o t h da ug h ter s d ec id e th at th e y wi ll

re ce i v e t he K ing ‘B u t n ot on e fo l lowe r’ . Th e red u c tio n o f

h is re ti nu e o f kn ig ht s fro m a h u ndre d to f i f ty to f in a ll y n on e ,

mir ro rs t he e ffa c e m e nt o f o w n ide nt ity as k in g .

๏ H is o nl y re ma i n in g d ig n it y i s h is ‘ n ob l e an ge r’ . H e a ttemp ts

to re si st te a r s a n d th ei r c on n ot a ti o n s of w om a n li n es s an d
we a kne ss b u t h e f ai l s.

๏ H is p ro m i se t ha t his ‘ h e a r t s ha ll b rea k i nt o a h un dre d

th ous a nd f l a w s | Or e re [h e ’ ll ] w ee p’ is q u ic k ly b ro k en i n a

pu bl i c a nd d e e pl y hu m i lia ti ng f as hio n .

๏ At t hi s p o in t i n t he p la y, L ea r n ee d s h is F oo l to sh o w h i m
th e t ru th be n e a th t he s ur f ac e o f w h a t i s h ap p e n in g , e ve n
whe n t he d e mo ns t ra ti o n i s be yo nd t he re ac h of w o rd s .

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 20

 ๏ In th e be g i n ni n g o f his j o ur ne y to w ard s en l ig h ten m e n t, h e
re f us e s t o b e rem i n d e d o f th e u n h ap pi ne ss c au sed b y h is
a rb it ra ry a nd re c kl e s s de ci s io n to h o ld th e L ov e Te st an d
ban is h C o rde l i a . L a te r o n, th is re a li ty i s f orce d u p o n h i m b y
mad ne ss .

๏ The a l li t e r a ti o n, rh y t hm and hissing sibilance of L e ar ’s f in a l

sp e e ch b e fo re he dec ide s t o le av e t h e ca stl e f orce a h e av y
emphasis on each word and create a tone that
dem o ns t ra t e s hi s pa in a nd g en u ine s u ff e r in g:

No, you u n n a t u r a l h a g s ,

I w i l l hav e su c h re ve n g e s o n y o u b o t h ,

Tha t a l l t h e wo r ld s h a ll- - I w ill d o s u c h

t hi ngs,—

๏ Ju st be fo re t hi s , th e K ing ut t er s h i s f i r st tr u l y w i se w ord s i n
th e p l ay.

๏ Tau nt ed b y R eg a n a n d Go n er i l ’s re du cti on of hi s k ni gh ts
a nd th ei r que s ti o ni n g o f h i s n ee d f or s u ch a re tin u e , h e
re p l i e s wi t h a d eg re e o f p h i l os op h i ca l de pth th at is simp ly
n ot a pp a re n t e a rl i e r i n th e p l ay :

Oh re a s o n n ot t h e n e e d

our ba se st b e g g a r s

A re i n th e p o ore s t t h in g s u p e r flu o u s :

A l l ow no t n a t u re m o re t h a n n a t u re n e e d s ,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 21

 M a n's l if e ' s a s c h e a p a s b e a s t ' s :

๏ U na bl e to c o nt ro l hi s pa s s i on , h e le av es an d j ou r n ey s i n to
th e s t o rm.

๏ Thi s in te n se s to r m w hic h is t he p la y’s m os t p ote n t sy mb ol,

i s o f co ur s e t he ph y s i ca l rep re s e nta tio n o f L e ar ’s i n n er

su ffe ri ng . ‘ Cont e nd in g wi t h t he fre t ful el em e nt s ’ L ea r

roa ms bareh ead e d.

๏ H is m ent a l a n g ui s h i nures him to the effects of the ‘ wi nd

and the r a i n ’; and in a m an n er th a t is si m u lta n eo u sl y

h ero i c a nd t ra g i c, he st ri v e s t o ‘ o u t s c o r n ’ th e e le m en ts .

๏ Personifying thunder and lightening, he sees them as

‘ser vi le m i ni ste r s ’ to h is d a ug ht er s w h om h e b el ie ve s are

e ng a g e d in a b a tt l e to de s t roy him .

๏ L ea r c a l l s o n th e “ a ll - s ha kin g th un de r” to ‘ C r ac k n at u re’s

m oul ds’ a nd sp i l l t he se ed s t ha t c rea te ‘ i n g ra tef u l man ’.

๏ In his anguish, he sees the thunder as his agent in

a nn ih il a t in g th e co rru p te d w or l d o f m an . Ho w ev er at th is

stage in his suffering, he cannot identify what that

c o rr upt i o n a c tu a l l y i s.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 22

 ๏ L e a r s t i l l f e e l s t h a t h e i s ‘ M o re s i n n ’ d a g a i n s t t h a n

sinn in g’ a nd we kno w t ha t it i s g o i n g to tak e e ve n g re ate r

su ffe ri ng c o m b in e d w it h th e re d em p ti ve po w er of Cordelia’s
l ove if h e i s t o b e pu rg e d co m ple te ly of h i s h u b r is.

๏ In t hi s re sp e c t, i t i s i m p or ta nt th a t w e v ie w L e ar ’s su ff er i n g
a s pa rt o f h is j o ur n e y to w a rd s a w a re n es s.

๏ We g a i n a n umb e r o f i n si g h t s in t o j us t h ow m uc h Le ar h as
changed. He has already achieved some progress by

acknowledging his culpability in relation to Cordelia, in admitting

that he is a weak and despised old man and in realising that what

we “need” does not define our humanity.

๏ F o l l o w i n g h i s e x p o s u re t o t h e e l e m e n t s , h e b e g i n s t o

c o ns id e r th e ev i l o f h id d en gu i lt , t he w i des pre a d
hypocrisy and injustice apparent in the
in sti tut ions of the s tate .

๏ Furthermore, and perhaps most importantly, he begins to

understand the common humanity that he shares
with the “poor naked” and dejected members of his
realm.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 23

 ๏ The "thought of their houseless heads and unfed sides" now

troubles him deeply. And with a genuine sense of culpability and

humility he admits that:

"O, I have ta’en

too little care of this”

๏ His urge is now to help the poor and voiceless: “to shake the

superflux to them, And show the heavens more just.”

๏ In a symbolic act of solidarity that signifies just how much he has

changed, Lear: “expose[s] [him]self to feel what wretches feel.”

๏ And when he expresses sympathy for the Fool, we sense that he

has changed and is beginning to understand and
empathise.

๏ It is of course very difficult to understand why Lear suffers so much

in the play. We know that he bears full responsibility for this
suffering, but this is not to say that he deserves it.

๏ At the end of Act three scene six, Edgar is left alone on stage to

soliloquise on Lear’s distress. In this speech, he measures his own

miseries against Lear’s and concludes:

How light and portable my pain seems now,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 24

 When that which makes me bend makes the

King bow.

๏ Stripped of power, of position and of familial affection, Lear is

brought to confront the reality of his situation. The change that his

suffering effects is quite simply staggering.

๏ When we next meet Lear, his anguish has driven him completely
insane. However, in this visionary madness we see how radically his

perception of the world has been altered. In other words, his

breakdown is accompanied by a break through.

๏ He displays wisdom and recognises the way in which he has been

shielded from reality by flattery:

They flattered

me like a dog; and told me I had white hairs in my

beard ere the black ones were there.

๏ He now understands the limitations of his power and accepts that

he is not divine:

When the rain came to

wet me once, and the wind to make me chatter; when

the thunder would not peace at my bidding; there I

found 'em, there I smelt 'em out.

[… ] I am not ague-proof.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 25

 ๏ For the first time in his life he sees through the hypocritical
pretensions of society with regard to sex and with regard to its
treatment of criminals. He also understands the true nature of

“authority.” And, finally, he sees that human life is inescapably

tragic:

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither;

Thou know'st the first time that we smell the

air,

We wawl and cry [. . .]

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of Fools.

๏ He also recognises the self-deception that has blinded him to the

truth. Lear is restored from his madness when he is re-united with
Cordelia, and admits his former foolishness.

๏ The redemptive power of Cordelia’s love for her father momentarily

restores his sanity; however, he is not the person he once was. The
selfish, hubristic man whose ego knew no bounds is now gone.

๏ In his place we meet a humble man who shuns the very court he
once sought to control completely.

๏ He envisages a future where trapped “like birds i’ the cage” both

Cordelia and he “will pray and sing” and “talk of court news.”

๏ Rather than see himself as the centre of court life, Lear is now
content to observe from a “wall’ prison.”

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 26

 ๏ The “pacts and sects” of “great ones” mean nothing to him now.
Instead, he seeks to relive his moment of redemption:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,

And ask of thee forgiveness […]

๏ For Lear though the journey has not ended. In a heartbreaking

scene of torment and pain the old King is forced to acknowledge
that his beloved daughter is dead:

She's gone for ever!

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
stone,
Why, then she lives.

๏ In a cruelly ironic turn of events he has no words to describe the

nature of his “bond” with his daughter. In the extremity of his pain
and suffering, he must now surely understand why Cordelia refused
to debase her love and utter the meaninglessly vapid words he
craved during the Love Test.

๏ He is reduced to an animalistic “howl” that is nothing less than a

primal expression of grief.

๏ When his death finally comes, it is a mercy and we are forced to

agree with Kent when he says that: ‘the wonder is, he hath
endured so long’.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 27

The 6 Stages of Lear’s Tragic Journey

Stage 1 : Op en i ng S c e n e : Our fi rst im pressions of Lear - Hubr is

E g o t is m : Whic h of you shall we say doth love us

most.

Rashness: H e re I d i s c l a i m a l l my p a t e r n a l c a re

Chec k this hideous rashness - Kent

Vi o l e n c e : P ro p i n q u i t y a n d p ro p e r t y o f b l o o d

S e l f - w ill : And as a s tran ge r to fi x he ar t an d m e

Stage 2 : A s F o r me r K i n g i n Retirem
H o l dent
t h e e f ro m t h i s fo rev e r.

Barbarous Sc ythian
I nc lu d e c ha r t from o l d h a n d ou t

Anger: Come not between the dragon and his

w ra t h

Va ssa l, Miscrea n t! Ou t o f my sigh t

Better thou

Hadst not been born than not t'have

pleased me better

Materialistic: N ow he r pr ice is fa l len

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 28

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 29
Stage 3 : In the Storm the tragic dimensions of Lear ’s character
emerge

Kingly presence / Blow winds and crac k your c heeks Rage! Blow!
tragic dimensions: Sp out!

Magnitude of his
personality:

S e l f pi t y: H e re I s t a n d a p o o r, i n fi r m , w e a k , d e s p i s e d o l d m a n

Reaches out to Po o r n a ke d w re t c h e s , w h e re s o ' e r y o u a re T h a t b i d e

others: His prayer in the pelting of this pitiless storm Oh I have ta' en Too
the storm (Turning li t t le c are of th i s: ta ke p hys ic , pom p Ex pos e thyself
point). A new to feel what wretc hes feel That thou mays't shake
consciousness of the superflux to them And show the heavens more
social and economic jus t
i n e q u a l i t y. A n e w
feeling for common
humanity of king and
beggar

Strength I w i l l e n d u re

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 30

Kingly presence / Blow winds and crac k your c heeks Rage! Blow!
tragic dimensions: Sp out!

C o n c e r n e d w i t h H ow d o s t , my b oy ? A r t c o l d ? W h e re i s t h e s t ra w ?
s u ff er i n g o f oth ers
I h a v e o n e p a r t i n my h e a r t

That's sorr y yet for thee .

I will be the pattern of all patience I will say

nothing.

S e l f pi t y: I a m a m a n m o re s i n n e d a g a i n s t t h a n s i n n i n g

This tempest in my mind

Doth from my senses take all feeling else

Save wh at b ea ts th ere : fil i al i ng ra titu de

C o n c e r n e d w i t h Kent: Good, my lord enter here

s u ff er i n g o f oth ers :
L ear : Pr i the e co me in thy se lf, se ek th in e ow n e ase . In
b oy, go fi r s t .

Sta g e 4: His Sanity gives way and he leaves reality behind

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 31

 Literary Genre Characterisation Setting and Atmosphere Moments of heightened
tension

➠ Thematic Concerns Language / Imagery /

Symbols etc
Opening and Closing
Moments

Plot

Makes e ective use

of
Dramatic function
The role of the
character
Use by Shakespeare
to
Is important to the
play
Imagine the play
without

Insanity Didst thou give all to thy daughter s?

Wish to share Unaccommodated man is no more but suc h a poor,

c o m m on hu man i ty: b a re , fo r ke d a n i m a l a s t h o u a r t .
Realises the
unimportance of
m at e r ia l & ce remo ni al
trappings:

Attempts to Then let them atomise Regan: see what breeds about her heart. Is
understand nature of there any cause in nature that makes these hard-hearts? (Mock
m an an d i n j us ti ce : Trial)

Complains of world's
flattery. Recognises They told me I was ever ything; `tis a lie I am not
v u l n e r a b il i ty a nd a g u e - p ro o f .
frailty of man:

Vi s i o n o f c o r r u p ti o n o f " A dog 's ob eyed i n o ffice "

law & hypocrisy of
" Through tatte re d c l oth es gre at vi ce s d o appe ar
s o c i e t y. P e r c e p t i o n
Robes and furred gowns hide all"
that there is one kind
of justice for the poor
& a n o t h e r for th e ri c h

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 32

ff
 Insanity Didst thou give all to thy daughter s?

E d g a r ' s c o m m e n t o n 0 ma tter a nd i mpe r tin en c y mixe d Rea s on i n madness

Lear's insanity:

P r e a c h e s p ati e nc e to " Thou mu st b e patient"

Gloucester with great
" Whe n we are bo r n, we cr y that
tenderness
w e a re c o m e t o t h i s g re a t s t a ge o f fo o l s "

Sta g e 5: Reunion with Cordelia

Self recognition / I a m a v e r y fo o l i s h , fo n d o l d m a n
knowledge

Recognises the wrong he If you have poison, I will drink it.

has done Cordelia

Humility I ’ l l k n e e l d ow n A n d a s k o f t h e e fo r g i v e n e s s

Even as Prisoner We tw o a lo n e w ill sin g like b ird s in a ca ge

Knows real love as a father
H e t h a t p a r t s u s s h a l l b r i n g a b ra n d f ro m h e a v e n a n d
fi re hen ce li ke foxes

Sta g e 6: Death of Cordelia

No words to express his Howl, Howl, Howl

grief

Actions I killed the slave that was a hanging thee

Pessimism Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life And thou no
breath at all?

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 33

 No words to express his Howl, Howl, Howl
grief

Kent: His suffering is over He hates him That would upon the rack of this tough world
Stretch him out longer

Kent: Inspired loyalty to the I have a journey Sir, shortly to go My master calls me I
end. must not say no

Cordelia

๏ Cordelia appears in only 4 scenes in the play and speaks no more

than 100 lines:

Act I scene 1
Act II scene 4
Act IV, scene 7
Act V, scene 3

and yet her presence goes far in counterbalancing the evil

represented by her sisters and their allies.

๏ One of the core issues examined in the play is nature and the natural
order and Cordelia is an embodiment of a concept of nature totally
opposed to that of Edmund, Goneril, Regan and Cornwall.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 34

 ๏ For her, the natural “bond” between parent and child is of central

importance. She upholds the principles on which civilised life / justice

must ultimately depend.

๏ Her role is defined by the Gentleman: "Thou hast a daughter who

redeems nature from the general curse which twain have brought

her to". And this role is viewed through the lens of Christian

symbolism.

๏ In this respect, she is a symbolic figure representing the values of

love, truth, pity, honour, courage, justice and forgiveness.

๏ Repeatedly Shakespeare suggests that Cordelia has a redemptive

role: she is a kind of female Christ.

2
๏ In the opening scene, she is despised, rejected and forsaken by

her own father; he alone finds fault with her.

๏ Cordelia is revolted by her sisters' sycophantic, fulsome hyperbole;

she simply cannot stomach it.

๏ She loves her father "according to [her] bond". When she suggests

that any future husband of hers will enjoy only half her love "half my

care and duty" she is, in truth, professing an extraordinary filial love.

๏ She cannot degrade her love to a vapid, meaningless rhetoric.

2 Triadic expressions are highly effective because they add emphasis in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 35

 ๏ As a consequence, Lear, even though he claims "I loved her most",

disinherits and curses her.

๏ In act of astonishing injustice, he disclaims "all [his] paternal care";

she is harshly ordered "avoid my sight"; she is "dowered with [his]

curse".

๏ This rejection of Cordelia is an act of unmitigated folly for which Lear

will pay a terrible price.

๏ One of the Fool's vital functions in this drama is to lead Lear to

painful enlightenment, acknowledgement and confession. (You have
an essay on this.) Cordelia had done no wrong and it is the Fool's role
to prove this to Lear. The Fool focuses relentlessly on Lear's folly and
Cordelia's innocence.

๏ Goneril states that Lear "always lov'd our sister most" and both she

and Regan interpret Lear's rejection of Cordelia as proof that his

judgement is impaired.

๏ This is also Kent's opinion: "Thy youngest daughter does not love

thee least;” and even the king of France, a visitor to the court knows

that Cordelia: “[...] even but now was your best object, the

argument of your praise, balm of your age, the best, the dearest”.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 36

 ๏ Cordelia reacts against the translation of affection into financial and
economic terms, the setting of a price on love.

๏ Flattery, she feels debases the truth of her actual love for her father.
Sincerity and absolute honesty is a way of life for her.

๏ Cordelia loves her father "according to her bond". It is based upon

the law of nature and involves the clearest recognition of filial

obligation.

๏ For Cordelia, "bond" means "natural tie", a duty willingly accepted

and gladly undertaken because it answers to "right instinct".

๏ One of truths that Cordelia defends is that love is neither quantifiable

nor mathematically divisible. She leaves for France with a

premonition of what lies in store for Lear: "I would prefer him to a

better place”.

๏ Slowly, painfully but inevitably, Lear begins to see the light. At first,

Cordelia's failure to pander to his voracious vanity is a "most small

fault": the truth, however will not be quiet and Lear, with desperation

in his voice, exclaims: "O Lear, Lear, Lear, beat at this gate let thy

folly in and thy dear judgement out.”

๏ The process of enlightenment intensifies and Lear is forced to

confess "I did her wrong". And then Lear eventually recognises

Cordelia's complete innocence.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 37

 ๏ In sharp contrast to her father, Cordelia is consistently portrayed as a
paragon of virtue.

๏ Hearing of Kent's disgrace, she writes to him from France (II.i.164).

When she hears the full extent of her father's distress, "an ample

tear trilled down her delicate cheek" and "once or twice heaved

the name of father”.

๏ Her only concern is her father. All her energies are devoted to the
rescue of Lear.

๏ To this end she is prepared to give all that she possesses. She tells

the doctor: "He that helps him, take all my outward worth".

๏ It is her tears that persuade France to invade England so that Lear

may be helped: "No blown ambition doth our arms incite but love,

clear love, and our overag'd father's right.” (Her sense of justice)

๏ The imagery associated with her is the imagery of nature. The

Gentleman tells Kent that she is like “sunshine and rain at once,

[that] her smiles and tears were like a better way".

๏ This is echoed again when Cordelia is seen as a beneficent goddess

of nature, whose tears can renew and “quicken” the virtue of earth:

"All blest secrets all you unpublish'd virtues of the earth spring

with my tears; be aidant and remediate".

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 38

 ๏ In Act IV scene i, the Gentleman uses celestial or heavenly language

"There she shook the holy water from her heavenly eyes" to

capture in a lyrical manner the spiritual nature of her forgiveness.

๏ She soliloquises "O dear father, it is thy business that I go about".

Here, Cordelia's identification with Christ as redeemer is most

focused. Her words echo those words spoken by Jesus in the New
Testament, portraying her as capable of great sacrifice in order to
redeem and relieve suffering.

“Shakespeare explores both the destructive and the redemptive power of love throughout the
play, King Lear.”
D i s c u s s t h i s s t a t e m e n t , s u p p o r t i n g y o u r a n s w e r w i t h re f e re n c e t o t h e p l a y.
LC 2016

๏ As Lear runs crazily through the fields of Dover, a Gentleman

observes that the King still: "hast one daughter who redeems

nature from the general curse".

๏ Once again, Cordelia is identified with the redemptive role of Christ

as she tries to save her "child - changed father”.

๏ Cordelia is truly a remarkable creation. She puts the highest value on

loyalty and tells Kent: "O thou good Kent! How shall I live and work

to match thy goodness?” “My life will be too short and every

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 39

 measure fail me.” She kisses the father who despised and rejected

her.

๏ Lear can only believe that Cordelia has taken him "out o' the grave"

and that she is "a soul in bliss [...] a spirit".

๏ Yet his guilt continues to overpower him. He admits that Cordelia has
done him no wrong and has cause not to love him. She replies with

generosity and forgiveness "no cause, no cause.”

๏ Her tears form a delicate counter-balance to the violence of the

language of the preceding scenes.

๏ In the Reconciliation Scene, the tenderness, warmth and selfless love

of Cordelia dominate as her virtues / values shine out against the
dark hellish cruelty of her sisters.

๏ It is a tearful and tender reunion. When Lear says "I think this lady to

be my child Cordelia", all she can say is "and so I am, I am”.

๏ When Lear and Cordelia are taken off to prison, she is

characteristically sorry for him rather than for herself: "For thee

oppressed king, I am cast down," revealing once again her dignity,

strength, simplicity and courage.

๏ Her words here before spoken just before her death form a powerful
allusion to Christ on the cross.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 40

 ๏ Of course, at this point, she is also reminding us of the profound
violation of family bonds that her sisters have committed.

๏ She has nothing to say in reply to Lear's: "we too alone will sing like

birds in the cage". She realises that his expectation of a joyful life in

prison is an illusion. She guesses that they are f death.

๏ Our last thoughts of her are reflected in Lear's words: "Her voice

was ever soft, gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman”.

๏ In a savage act of injustice, Cordelia is hanged in prison and her

voice is silenced. However, if Cordelia dies, her cause: the truth, does
not.

๏ As Lear “howl[s]” in grief and pain, he realises the limitations of

words and how they can be abused. His cry echoes Cordelia's truth.

Shakespeare makes effective use of Lear’s relationship with Cordelia to shape our
understanding of a number of the play’s core issues.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 41

Gloucester

“Throughout the course of the play, both Lear and Gloucester are tragic
characters, but Lear develops into the more heroic figure.
Leaving Cert 2016

๏ Like Lear, Gloucester is not an evil man and like Lear he grows in
stature throughout the play.

๏ The vicious encroachment of evil is one of the play’s most important

core issues. And his response to this vicious encroachment is at

times akin to apathy and surrender: his instinct is to retreat, whereas

Lear batters himself to pieces against the face of evil.

๏ Nothing marks the difference between him and Lear so much as their
first instinctive reactions to Cornwall:

Gloucester: "You know the fiery quality of the Duke, how

unremovable and fix'd he is in his own course".

Lear: "Fiery! What quality? My breath and blood! Fiery! The

fiery Duke! Tell the hot Duke that”.

๏ Gloucester’s distinction from Lear suggests the distinction between

ordinary and extraordinary men.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 42

 ๏ What appears in Lear as heroic error appears in him as gullibility.

๏ He first appears as the lecherous, sensual man who has fathered the

bastard, Edmund. He openly admits Edmund's illegitimacy and

laughs at the circumstances of his birth:

"this knave came somewhat saucily into the world before

he was sent for, yet was his mother fair; there was good

sport at his making and the whoreson must be

acknowledged.”

๏ His casually racy tone clearly indicates to us that he feels little guilt

for his immoral behaviour: "now I am brazd to it" and for the fact

that Edmund's birth has deprived him of the legal inheritance rights
enjoyed by his brother Edgar.

๏ However, he is an affectionate father and loves both his sons equally

as Edmund admits:

"Our father's love is to the bastard Edmund As to the

legitimate”

๏ But licentiousness is not Gloucester's only fault. He is easily

deceived by Edmund into believing that Edgar is plotting against him

and jumps with absurd rapidity to the conclusion that the son he has

loved for years is in fact a “villain”:

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 43

 "O villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred

villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse than

brutish!

๏ Gloucester is also quick to self-pity:

"to his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him

heaven and earth!"

and rejection:

"I never got him.”

๏ He accepts that the scant evidence of the letter and Edmund's word
are enough to condemn his son without a hearing. This is a
fundamental act of injustice.

๏ He accepts the word of a son who "had been out nine years" and

fails to recognise the innocence and virtue of the legitimate and loyal
Edgar. In other words he is as blind to the truth about his own
children as Lear is about his daughters.

๏ His credulity, his superstition and his hasty judgement make him

easy to manipulate. When we meet him in Act 2 he is at his worst,

with a sense of (exaggerated injustice) righteousness he declares:

"The noble Duke my master

My worthy arch and patron, comes tonight;

By his authority I will proclaim it,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 44

 That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks

Bringing the murderous coward to the stake;

He that conceals him death"

"All ports I'll bar; the villain shall not scape"

๏ Here he reaches his lowest point / nadir overcome with self-pity and

righteous anger: "O Madam my old heart is crack'd, its crack’d".

๏ Gloucester, cannot feel secure so long as the dreadful possibility of

filial ingratitude haunts him:

"I would unstate myself to be in due resolution".

3
๏ Whereas Edmund, his son, is hard, contemptuous and masterful,

Gloucester is wavering, uncertain, fearful and confused.

๏ For all his air of jocular complacency in the opening scene, he is in

fact very insecure.

๏ We see proof of this when he anxiously scrutinises signs and omens

and the stars, fearing what the future might bring: "These late

eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us”.

๏ As with Lear, his desire for "justice" on Edgar is so savage and so

extreme that it clearly betrays an open wound.

3 Triadic expressions are highly effective because they add emphasis in an aesthetically pleasing manner.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 45

 ๏ We certainly do not have to wait until the storm scene to realise his

love for Edgar: "No father [loved] his son dearer” but what is most

striking is his helplessness in the face of his deepest feelings and his
need and desire to be loved.

๏ He seems overwhelmed by events as he watches his ordered world

go to pieces without understanding why and is swept along by what

he sees as "ruinous disorders."

๏ He forms no plan to confront the vicious encroachment of evil but

follows Edmund's directions and accepts Cornwall as: "the noble

Duke, [his] master, [his] worthy arch and patron."

๏ He was not present during the Love-Test and makes no immediate

comment when he returns; although we discover he is disturbed by
Kent's banishment, the reduction in Lear's power and the fate of
Cordelia:

"Kent banished thus?

And the King gone tonight?

Prescribed his power confined to exhibition.

All this done upon the gad"

๏ And yet despite his deep misgivings he accepts the situation, unlike

Kent, and complies. He does acquiesce, however reluctantly, in the

stocking of Kent and later tries to smooth things out between

Cornwall, Regan and the outraged Lear: "I would have all well

betwixt you". He apologises to Kent:

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 46

 "I am sorry for thee frend,

the duke's pleasure,

I'll entreat for thee"

๏ He is ineffectual in protecting Lear from the cruelty of Goneril and

Regan. Initially at least, his love for Lear is not as great as his desire
to avoid a costly confrontation with the Duke. He only hints that Lear
should not be shut out in the storm:

"Alack, the night comes on and the high winds

Do sorely ruffle; for many miles about

There's scarce a bush"

๏ And after such an ineffective protest, he locks the doors on the king,
helpless once again when confronted by strong feelings of cruelty
and the shocking reality of evil.

๏ The play associates Gloucester's character with fire - not just

because of his lechery, but because it is also a symbol of light,

warmth and comfort, a gesture of human feeling.

๏ For Gloucester is not simply a lecher, one who has had too much

"fire" in the past, neither is he simply a weak man who lacks it

altogether.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 47

 ๏ If he had fire in him enough to “beget” Edmund, he also has enough

to come to Lear's relief: "even if [he] die[s] for it, as no less is

threatened” him and enough to confront the fiery duke eventually.

๏ The mere thought of Lear facing "hell-black night" is so unbearable

that it brings Gloucester to one courageous decision and then

another: "The king, my old master, must be relieved”.

๏ Loyalty is one of the play’s core issues and Gloucester is driven

here more by loyalty and courageous decency than by self-interest to

take sides.

๏ We now begin to see behind Gloucester's lack of assertion and

confidence and what we witness is real human decency.

๏ Though his fears had made him talk of his son being brought to the

stake, he does not, in fact, like violence when he sees it: "Weapons,

arms what's the matter here?" and the punishment of Kent with the

stocks, let alone the stake, also brings out his sympathy and
concern.

๏ And as the play develops the presence of these decencies makes

itself more felt in the good man's sense of outrage at the profound
injustice that is taking place:

"Alack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing.

When I desired their leave that I might pity him, they took

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 48

 from me the use of mine own house, charg'd me on pain of

perpetual displeasure, neither to speak of him, entreat for

him or any way sustain him”.

๏ Here his language now comes closer Kent’s plain-speaking: "I will

look to him and privily relieve him.”

๏ So we see Gloucester's steady growth in stature, insight and

courage. The sight of Lear on the heath is too much for the decent

Gloucester to stomach. And in his repugnance he finds the strength

to challenge the powers which he had previously obeyed:

"my duty cannot suffer

I obey in all your daughters' hard commands".

๏ This proves to be a fatal step, because he informs Edmund and yet,

when confronted by the evil powers of Cornwall and Regan, his sense
of outrage at this injustice is a moving testament to his newly
awakened strength and decency:

"Good my friends, consider

You are my guests, do me no foul play

I am your host

With robbers' hands my hospitable favours

You should not ruffle thus."

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 49

 ๏ Helpless in the hands of those who wilfully flout every human scruple,
he affirms the bonds of friendship and hospitality just as Cordelia had

done with her word "bond" and as Kent had with "father", "master",

"patron".

๏ At this moment of extreme danger Gloucester achieves a heroic

stature in our eyes: "I am tied to the stake and I must stand the

course".

๏ He can now no longer retreat and is made to confront the realities of

evil and the full force of feeling, i.e. of hatred and cruelty of Goneril
and Regan / the nature of these evil people.

๏ In a moment of marvellous paradox, his strength now derives from his

utter helplessness. The man who anxiously scrutinised omens and
stars, who has feared what life might bring.

๏ He realises now that no retreat is possible. Having endured the

blinding, however, he also has to suffer other consequences of his
weaknesses.

๏ Not happy to simply blind him, Goneril and Regan want him to know
just how deeply he has been betrayed:

"O my follies, then Edgar was abused

Kind gods, forgive me that and prosper him".

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 50

 ๏ He confronts his passionate guilt when he realises the true natures of
Edmund and Edgar. Gloucester recognises that he was blind to his
faults:

"I stumbled when I saw"

and recognises the justice of his punishment:

“the gods are just and of our pleasant vices

Make instruments to plague us.”

๏ His response, however, is to withdraw into another kind of passivity -

the only withdrawal left to him being an inward one.

๏ Thus he "has no way"; man is a "worm", men are "as flies to

wanton boys"; the heavens have "humbled him to all strokes".

๏ All he can do is to give away first his “purse” (an act of distributive

justice to obey the overwhelming power of the heavens) and then

his very self:

"O you mighty gods!

This world I do renounce and in your sights

Shake patiently my great affliction off.

If I could bear it longer and not fall”

To quarrel with your great opposes wills

My snuff and loathed part of nature should

Burn itself out. if Edgar live, O bless him".

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 51

 ๏ LC 2016 ➠ In short, he sees the gods as "great opposeless wills"

very much as he saw the "fiery duke" whose disposition "all the

world well knows will not be rubb'd nor stopp'd". In the end, he

"renounces" the world which he still cannot really bear to

experience.

๏ Having been driven to want to know, because always suspecting the

worst, he now finds that all he knows is Lear's suffering and his own:

"have ingenious feeling

Of my huge sorrows! Better I were distract:

So should my thoughts be sever'd from my griefs

And woes by wrong imaginations lose

The knowledge of themselves".

๏ Gloucester's religion is entirely subjective and superstitious and

Edgar realises this when he makes him believe that his life has been
saved by a miracle.

๏ Thereafter, and with some lapses into despair, Gloucester learns to

accept the necessity of stoic endurance.

๏ His encounter with the mad Lear provokes feelings which are a

mixture of pity and envy - pity for a “ruined piece of nature”, envy of

the insensibility of madness that "by wrong imaginations" prevents

him from feeling the pain of the world.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 52

 ๏ He finds the strength, however, to move through the annihilating

sense of the absurd into a chastened generosity which echoes

Lear's egalitarian prayer:

"Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man

That slaves your ordinance, that will not see

Because he does not feel, feel your power quickly

So distribution should undo excess

and each man have enough"

๏ Thanks to Edgar, Gloucester survives Oswald's attempted murder

and later a relapse into despair, but his conflicting emotions when his
son finally reveals himself are too much for the old man to bear.

๏ There is one final and deeply tragic irony to be witnessed in

Gloucester’s journey. The moment his heart is brought by Edgar to
feel genuine and passionate intensity, he shatters:

"his flaw'd heart

Alack, too weak the conflict to support

Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief

Burst smilingly"

๏ Blessing Edgar, Gloucester dies - the character most in need of

genuine and deep feeling dies when he finally experiences it.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 53

Edmund Revision

๏ Edmund is the most mercenary and ruthless of the characters in King

Lear. His meteoric rise establishes him as a poster-boy for type of
cruel world that Goneril Regan wish to preside over. Never forget that:
he is responsible for the deaths of three princesses, as well as the
savage blinding of his father and that his progress is halted too late
to save Lear.

๏ By the end of the final scene Edmund has proved himself to be

formidably destructive. He comes very close to realising his dark
ambition.

๏ He is a Machiavellian character who manipulates those around him to

achieve his goals and, until the final moments of his life, shows no
remorse for his actions and has no concern for the suffering of
others. Indeed, it is on his instructions that Cordelia, who personifies
love and virtue, is needlessly put to death.

๏ From the beginning of the play, Edmund is associated with sin.

Gloucester introduces him to Kent saying:
1 have so often blushed to acknowledge him
And refers top him as a knave whose making involved good sport.

✴ These lewd, insensitive remarks of Gloucester demonstrate the low

estimation he has of Edmund and prepares us for Edmund's
resentment. He is the unfortunate victim of his father's sin, lacking
title and rights to inheritance. A pariah who is kept away from court:

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 54

 ✴ Edmund's response to this is that he hates the world he inhabits.
Edmund seethes with frustration about the 'plague of custom' that
keeps him on the fringes of society.

✴ His Machiavellian qualities include his political ambition and

willingness to use unscrupulous methods to achieve his aims. He
resents the social -conventions that deem him bastard and he revolts
against his fate:
Wherefore should I | Stand the plague of custom

๏ In his first soliloquy, he refuses to submit to the patriarchal hierarchy

we saw in operation in Act I Scene 1. Instead, he declares that nature
is his goddess. He argues that he possesses personal qualities that
make him his legitimate brother’s equal. Why should he be denied
property and power because he is illegitimate? Edmund is
determined to 'grow' and 'prosper. Like Goneril and Regan, he is
ready to defend his own interests at any cost.

๏ Edmund is very charming and he skilfully takes us into his confidence

through his use of soliloquies.

๏ His opening soliloquy at the beginning of Act I Scene ii shows the

reasoning of the malcontent. His last line also reveals his defiance:
'Now gods stand up for bastards.’

๏ However, we quickly realise that Edmund does not need the gods to
help him. He is a masterful manipulator and a fine actor, who takes
his father and brother in with disturbing ease. Edmund says himself,
he is adaptable and ready to manipulate events to serve his turn; 'all
with me’s meet / that I can fashion fit'. His ability to adopt the right
tone in any situation helps him in his progress towards power.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 55

 seems entirely plausible at this stage in the play. In Act I Scene i and
Act I Scene ii, fathers misjudge their children, precipitating their own
ruin.

๏ He is filled with bitterness and schemes to win himself both rank and
wealth at the expense of his father and his brother, Edgar:
Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.

✴ He commits himself to evil in reaction to the view that illegitimate

children are base:
Why brand they us with base?

✴ He is a cunning and ruthless person who mocks the gullibility of

those around him, laughing at Gloucester's superstitious nature and
mocking Edgar's honesty:
A credulous father and a noble brother
taking pride in his cleverness and villainy and mocking sardonically anything
that does not meet his own philosophy as:
The excellent foppery of the world

✴ He is driven by ambition and in committing himself to shaping his

own destiny and to the destruction of his family members, he revolts
against providence and pits himself against the natural order of the
world.

✴ His goddess, Nature, is a brutal, anarchic force. Edmund never

apologises for his wickedness; he revels in it right up to the final
scene.

✴ But you have to be very careful not to rush to any quick judgement
about Edmund. The beliefs he outlines in Act I Scene ii suggest he
rejects the hierarchy that has made his father and brother so

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 56

 succeed in society’s terms. He aims first at Edgar’s inheritance, then
at Gloucester’s title and finally at the throne of England. So surely
Edmund cannot be viewed as an anti-establishment figure? He is
much more complicated than that.

✴ He is a quick witted individual and an opportunist who can very

quickly take advantage of chance. He tells Gloucester that Edgar was
involved in the “Mumbling of wicked charms.”

✴ When he hears of the approach of Cornwall and Goneril, he asks

Edgar if he has lately insulted Cornwall or been spreading rumours
about him:
You may have offended him
quickly making Edgar anxious about his relationship with these characters.
Later when his father informs him of a letter concerning Cordelia, he uses the
information to ingratiate himself with Goneril and Cornwall and to portray
Gloucester as a traitor. Cornwall rewards him with the title he has been craving:
True or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester

✴ There is a natural attraction between Edmund and the other evil

characters. He initially wins their sympathy by suggesting that Edgar
tried to kill him. They associate Edgar with Lear's knights, and the
fact that Edgar is Lear's godson alienates him further. Edmund plays
on this, telling Regan:
Yes Madam, he was of that consort

✴ Ironically, Cornwall says of Edmund that:

Natures of such deep trust we shall much need

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 57

 ✴ In Act 3 scene 5, Cornwall goes even further rewarding Edmund's
villainy, not only with his father's title, but also by becoming his
spiritual father himself:
I will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dearer
Father in my love

✴ His abandonment of Gloucester to the torture inflicted upon the old

man by Cornwall and Regan is truly evil. He not only betrays his
father in an unnatural fashion, but consigns him to incredible
suffering. For this reason, he can be described as callous.

✴ He is an insidious and mercenary character. He has no true feeling for

Goneril and Regan and his association with them is always
calculating. Edmund is a political person dedicated to acquiring
power and while the two sisters compete for his attentions and his
favour, he views them coldly as pawns in his ambitious schemes:
To both these sisters have I sworn my love
[...] Which of them shall I take?
Both? One? Or neither?

✴ His influence is divisive. Both Goneril and Regan lust after him and
are pitted against each other because of him. Albany recognises the
threat he poses and after the battle tells him that:
I hold you but a subject of this war,
Not as a brother
Albany orders that Edmund surrender Lear and Cordelia to him as prisoners. It
is a significant moment, because Albany is reminding Edmund of feudal duties
and of his inferior rank.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 58

 ✴ His treatment of Lear and Cordelia is truly appalling. It is a merciless
and barbaric act. Edmund blackmails the Captain, reminding him of
previous promotion and telling him that refusal to follow orders will
result in no further advancement. This shows how unscrupulous and
immoral he is.

✴ The plan to have Cordelia's death seem to be suicide again reveals

his scheming nature and how devious and deceitful he is. Ironically,
when Edgar challenges as an anonymous knight, Edmund says
I will maintain my truth and honour firmly
but these principles and morals are alien to him.
Ironically, he is:
Cozened and beguiled
as Goneril says. The character most associated with distorting appearance and
reality is tricked into abandoning the rules of knighthood and fights an
anonymous opponent who kills him.

✴ Most critics are of the opinion that Edmund is redeemed before his
death, that he is transformed by the redemptive power of love. They
believe that once Edmund realises that he was beloved by Goneril
and Regan that he is determined to recant and to save Lear and
Cordelia.

✴ Yet other readers believe that even when facing death he is

manipulative, that he delays in sending the order to stop the
executions and that it is his final wicked act to frustrate the good
characters around him. After all, he even has to be reminded by
Edgar to send some token to indicate that the order is genuine.

✴ His epiphany seems abrupt and unbelievable, yet within the context
of the play's themes and the emphasis on the need for love, it

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 59

 appears that it is appropriate to believe that his transformation is
genuine.

✴ However, whatever the final interpretation, Edmund throughout most

of the action of the play is a character of guile and insidious
scheming that is reminiscent of Iago in Othello. He is nothing like the
honest character that most of his fellow characters take him to be.

✴ While, we certainly come to loathe everything Edmund represents, it

is possible to admire his charm, tenacity and quick wits and to almost
enjoy his energetic acting out of roles. One of the reasons an
audience can admire Edmund, wicked though he is, is that he shapes
his own destiny, believes in free will and makes no foppish or
superstitious excuses for his behaviour. In this way he is a modern
character in a play that contains some very medieval concepts.

✴ However, in the end we must never forget that we must reject him
everything Edmund represents, as we have rejected Goneril and
Regan.

Kent’s Character

๏ Kent first holds our attention with his passionate plea for Lear to
reverse his judgment on Cordelia in Act one, Scene one. He feels

“honour bound," to intervene “When majesty stoops to folly.” In

the same scene, Kent tells Lear:

My life I never held but as a pawn,

To wage against thine enemies,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 60

 Nor fear to lose it,

Thy safety being the motive.

๏ The most prominent characteristic of Kent is his complete devotion to

the service of his master.

๏ Coleridge considers Kent to be "perhaps the nearest to perfect

goodness of all Shakespeare's characters.”

๏ Gloucester describes his fellow Earl as "noble and true hearted" (I,ii,

122-123), and calls the offence which led to his banishment

"honesty." According to Kent himself, he is the "physician" and "true

blank" of Lear's eye, foretelling the disaster which Lear fails to see
(1,1, 158, 163).

๏ Kent seems to want nothing for himself. His service is acknowledged

and thanked by Cordelia (IV,vii, 1-6), and Lear, before death,
welcomes him back into the kingdom (V,iii, 282-294).

๏ But Lear is just barely unable to recognise that Caius was the
disguised Kent, and thus never quite appreciates the great sacrifice
of his labours.

๏ Kent keeps us informed about important developments in the plot

and acts as Cordelia’s champion. However, in spite of his constancy,
he begins to seem worn down in the second half of the play. He

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 61

 endures as long as his master needs him but his tone becomes
increasingly melancholy when Cordelia reappears. His rhyming
couplet at the end of Act IV Scene 7 is downbeat: 'My point and
period will be throughly wrought / Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s
fought' (IV.7.96–7). Perhaps Shakespeare is using Kent to hint at
Lear’s death. Does Kent see that he will not be needed for much
longer? Kent’s lines in V.3 are weary too.

๏ In the end, Albany offers Kent a share in the rule of the kingdom, but
Kent, near death himself, declines in order to follow his master, who
he says calls him on a journey which he cannot refuse (V,iii, 321-322).

๏ The character of Kent gains complexity from his ability to use

appearance.

๏ His advocacy for plainness and honesty are qualified by willingness

to dissemble, even to his master, in the higher purpose of serving
him.

๏ The limitations of Kent as Caius, and maybe too of Kent himself, are
exceeded by the excellence of his service.

๏ The Fool criticises the folly of Kent as Caius, but it is never clear that
the Fool knows Caius to be Kent.

๏ His principal motive is the love of Lear. In contrast with the disguise
of Edgar, the disguise of Kent is a shaving off of everything that

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 62

 divestment of his nobility, the disguise of Kent is not a change to the
least civilised man "brought near to beast," but rather an erasure of
the particulars of region and function which human beings are not
otherwise found without.

๏ De Alvarez states that the disguise of Kent "is not a change of nature
at all, whereas Edgar's disguise seems to be a change of nature."'

๏ Bradley writes that Kent in disguise "retains much of his natural

character. The eccentricity seems to be put on, but the plainness
which gets him set in the stocks is but an exaggeration of his
plainness in the opening scene." Granting this similarity, the
differences between Kent himself and Kent as Caius will be further
examined below.

๏ When Kent presents himself to Lear and Lear asks him "what art
thou," Kent, abstracting from particulars, answers "a man, sir." He
avoids answering "a Kentish man," or "an earl," and does not lie, for
example by saying "an old soldier." Kent, both as Caius and as Kent,
is frequently called "man" or "a man" in the play, and part of the
question exceeded by the excellence of his service.

๏ The Fool criticises the folly of Kent as Caius, but it is never clear that
the Fool knows Caius to be Kent. The limitations of Kent as Caius are
different from the limitations of Kent as Kent. It may he that Kent
makes errors in his disguised service to Lear, but survives these
errors to learn from them because of his disguise.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 63

 ๏ For like his fellow earl Gloucester, Kent is a "traitor" in his service to
the King. And like Gloucester, Kent has letters in his possession that
would similarly convict him. Yet, probably because no one knows he
is an earl, Kent survives to fulfil his purpose and deliver the King to
Dover.

๏ Like Edgar and Edmund, Kent is given a soliloquy to explain the

difference between his true identity and his disguised appearance.
Just before Kent enters to offer his service to Lear, he explains:

If but as well I other accents borrow,

That can my speech difuse, my good intent

May carry through itself to that full issue

For which I have raz'd my likeness. Now, banished Kent,

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned,

So may it come, thy master, whom thou lov'st,

near Dover, where he is earl. It is the altered dialect which Kent later
identifies with the plain speaking or bluntness of Caius (II,iv, 90-115).

๏ This plain speech is contrasted both with his parody of the flowery
speech of court flatterers (II,ii, 106-109), which he calls "out" of his
"dialect," and with Kent's own more noble speech, spoken when he
is not in disguise. The best example of this more noble speech
occurs while he is in the stocks (II,ii, 159-173).

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 64

 ๏ Having been answered that what Kent is "a man," I Lear attempts to
clarify his question, asking, "what dolt thou profess? What wouldst
thou with us?" Kent answers not by naming his occupation, but with
what is like a profession of faith:

I do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him

truly that will put me in trust; to love him that is

honest; to converse with him that is wise and says

little; to fear judgment; to fight when I cannot choose,

and to eat no fish.

๏ When Lear finally asks directly what it is that he wants, and learns
that he wants work serving him, Lear asks, "Dost thou know me,
fellow? Lear is not wearing the crown. Kent answers "No, sir; but you
have that in your countenance / Which I would fain call master."
Asked what that is, Kent answers "authority."

๏ Kent pretends to recognise the legitimate authority of Lear without

the customary indications, in the most visible or superficial of natural
appearances. Kent hides his true loyalty by pretending to be plain or
to act according to the most simple appearances. At the same time,
what he says is true-' that he does not know Lear, who has become
unlike the Lear that Kent has known.

๏ Kent uses the same disguise in the scene of his second fight with
Oswald, at Gloucester in the second act. Edmund and Cornwall break
up the fight. When Cornwall asks Kent what he considers the fault of

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 65

 Oswald to be, Kent answers "his countenance likes me not" (11,ii,
91).

The Fool

The Fool in King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s most intriguing characters, playing a crucial
yet often understated role in the development of the tragedy. His function in the play
transcends mere entertainment, as he serves as a truth-teller, social commentator, and a
mirror to King Lear’s folly. The Fool’s unique position allows him to criticise the king without
fear of retribution, offering insight not only into Lear’s descent into madness but also into
broader themes of power, wisdom, and the human condition.

The Role of the Fool in Shakespearean Drama

In Shakespearean drama, the Fool often serves as a character who can speak truth to
power, albeit in a veiled or comic manner. While their humour can be light-hearted and
entertaining, Shakespearean fools typically offer deeper insight into the play’s events and
characters. This is particularly true in King Lear, where the Fool assumes the role of Lear’s
conscience, pointing out the king’s mistakes and folly in a way that other characters
cannot.

The Fool is not merely a comic gure in King Lear. Unlike traditional court jesters, he
displays a profound awareness of the events unfolding around him and often expresses
this awareness through sharp wit and biting sarcasm. He is privy to the king’s inner turmoil
and uses his position to reveal truths that Lear is either too proud or too blind to see. As G.
Wilson Knight argues in The Wheel of Fire, the Fool’s role is pivotal in communicating the
play’s essential truths, even though he appears to do so in a light-hearted or comic
fashion.

The Fool’s Relationship with King Lear

The Fool has a unique bond with King Lear, one marked by both affection and audacity.
From the outset of the play, the Fool is the only character able to speak frankly to the king,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 66

fi
mocking him for his decision to divide his kingdom and disinherit Cordelia. In Act 1, Scene
4, the Fool famously chides Lear for his rashness:

“Thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away”
(1.4.155-156).

Here, the Fool uses a metaphor to highlight Lear’s foolishness in giving away his kingdom,
effectively surrendering his authority to his manipulative daughters, Goneril and Regan.
The image of a “bald crown” is not only a comment on Lear’s advancing age but also a
symbol of his diminishing power, contrasting the “golden” crown of kingship with the
foolhardy act of abdication.

Throughout the play, the Fool serves as Lear’s conscience, reminding him of the folly of
his decisions. In Act 1, Scene 5, the Fool speaks again in metaphorical terms:

“I am better than thou art now: I am a fool, thou art nothing” (1.5.38-39).

This statement underscores the reversal of roles that has taken place. While Lear was
once a powerful king, he has now reduced himself to “nothing,” having relinquished his
authority and control. The Fool, by contrast, acknowledges his own role as a fool, but in
doing so, he subtly asserts his superiority over the fallen king. He may be a fool by title,
but Lear, through his actions, has rendered himself powerless and inconsequential.

The Fool’s ability to point out Lear’s mistakes without facing punishment is one of the key
aspects of their relationship. While Kent, Cordelia, and others are punished or exiled for
speaking the truth, the Fool is immune from such repercussions. His jests and riddles,
though biting, are tolerated by Lear because they are veiled in the language of folly.
However, as the play progresses, it becomes clear that the Fool’s words carry a weight
that Lear cannot ignore. The Fool’s observations cut through Lear’s delusions, forcing him
to confront the reality of his situation, even if he is not always ready to accept it.

The Fool as a Symbol of Wisdom in Folly

Shakespeare frequently plays with the notion of “wise folly” in his works, and the Fool in
King Lear is one of the clearest examples of this theme. Despite his status as a fool, he is
arguably one of the wisest characters in the play. His jests and songs are laced with
insight, and his role as a truth-teller is a sharp contrast to the dishonesty and attery of
Lear’s other courtiers.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 67

fl
 In Act 3, Scene 2, during the storm on the heath, the Fool uses a series of riddles to
comment on the state of the world:

“This is a brave night to cool a courtesan.

I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go:
When priests are more in word than matter;
When brewers mar their malt with water;
When nobles are their tailors’ tutors;
No heretics burned, but wenches’ suitors—
Then shall the realm of Albion
Come to great confusion.” (3.2.79-86)

The prophecy, though delivered in a humorous tone, re ects a deeper truth about the
corruption and moral decay that have overtaken Lear’s kingdom. The Fool’s mention of
“priests” who are “more in word than matter” and “nobles” who are “their tailors’ tutors”
points to the hypocrisy and vanity of the ruling class, while the reference to “great
confusion” foreshadows the chaos that will soon engulf the kingdom. Despite his
seemingly nonsensical speech, the Fool is acutely aware of the social and political
upheaval taking place.

The idea of wisdom in folly is further explored in the Fool’s comment in Act 1, Scene 4:

“Fools had ne’er less grace in a year;

For wise men are grown foppish,
And know not how their wits to wear,
Their manners are so apish.” (1.4.168-171)

Here, the Fool laments the inversion of wisdom and folly in the world. Wise men, once
esteemed for their intelligence and insight, have become “foppish” and super cial, unable
to wield their wisdom effectively. The Fool’s commentary here can be seen as a re ection
on Lear’s own descent into folly. Once a wise and respected king, Lear has become foolish
and irrational, casting aside those who truly love him (such as Cordelia) in favour of those
who atter him (Goneril and Regan).

The Fool’s Disappearance and Its Signi cance

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 68

fl
fi
fl
fi
fl
The Fool’s abrupt disappearance from the play has been a source of much critical debate.
After Act 3, Scene 6, the Fool is never seen or mentioned again, leaving scholars to
speculate on the reasons for his exit. Some argue that the Fool’s role is absorbed by
Edgar, who adopts the persona of Poor Tom, another “foolish” gure, during Lear’s
descent into madness. Edgar’s role as Poor Tom parallels the Fool’s in many ways, as he,
too, speaks in riddles and metaphors, offering insight into Lear’s deteriorating mental state.

Another interpretation is that the Fool’s disappearance symbolises Lear’s transition from
ignorance to awareness. As Lear begins to confront the reality of his situation and the
consequences of his actions, the Fool’s role as truth-teller becomes less necessary. In a
sense, the Fool has ful lled his purpose, guiding Lear through the initial stages of his
downfall until Lear is ready to face the truth on his own. As Jan Kott notes in Shakespeare
Our Contemporary, the Fool’s departure marks the moment when Lear is left to grapple
with the full weight of his madness and suffering.

There is also a more tragic interpretation of the Fool’s disappearance, one that aligns with
the play’s themes of loss and suffering. In Act 3, Scene 6, Lear famously remarks:

“And my poor fool is hanged.” (5.3.304)

While this line is typically interpreted as referring to Cordelia, some critics suggest that it
may also allude to the Fool’s fate. If the Fool has been hanged, it would underscore the
play’s relentless depiction of loss and injustice, as even the wisest characters are not
spared from the tragic consequences of Lear’s actions.

The Fool and the Theme of Madness

The Fool plays a signi cant role in the play’s exploration of madness, both as a
commentator on Lear’s mental state and as a character who skirts the boundaries of
madness himself. His jests and riddles, while often insightful, can also be disorienting and
confusing, blurring the line between wisdom and madness. The Fool’s language is
frequently nonsensical, yet it carries a deeper meaning that re ects the chaotic and
irrational world in which the characters nd themselves.

The storm scenes in Acts 3 and 4 are particularly important in this regard. As Lear rages
against the storm, the Fool remains by his side, offering a counterpoint to Lear’s madness.
While Lear’s rantings are wild and uncontrolled, the Fool’s speech, though seemingly mad,
is calculated and purposeful.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 69

fi
fi
fi
fl
fi
 This statement re ects one of the play’s central ironies: the Fool, seemingly nonsensical
speech, is able to expose the folly of those who consider themselves wise. The Fool’s
presence during Lear’s descent into madness highlights the ne line between wisdom and
madness, suggesting that the two are not as distinct as they might initially appear.

In some ways, the Fool’s role in the play mirrors Lear’s own journey into madness. Both
characters use language that is fragmented and disjointed, lled with riddles, puns, and
nonsensical phrases. Yet while Lear’s madness is a result of his psychological and
emotional turmoil, the Fool’s “madness” is a deliberate performance, a way of revealing
uncomfortable truths while maintaining his position at court. This distinction underscores
the play’s exploration of the complexities of human reason and irrationality.

The Fool in King Lear is a character of immense complexity, whose role in the play
extends far beyond comic relief. As Lear’s conscience and truth-teller, the Fool serves as a
commentator on the king’s folly, the corruption of the court, and the broader themes of
madness and wisdom. His sharp wit and biting sarcasm expose the absurdity of the world
around him, offering insight into the human condition while also providing a counterpoint to
the play’s more tragic elements.

Ultimately, the Fool’s disappearance from the play is as enigmatic as his character itself,
leaving audiences to ponder the signi cance of his role and the reasons for his exit.
Whether seen as a symbol of wisdom in folly, a re ection of Lear’s own descent into
madness, or a victim of the play’s tragic events, the Fool remains one of Shakespeare’s
most memorable and thought-provoking creations.
The play would be diminished without the important dramatic roles played by
the Fool and Kent

The Plot & Sub Plot

Functions of Subplot Shapes our understanding of characterisation, in particular Lear.

➠ Magni es the play’s thematic and philosophical concerns

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 70

fi
fl
fi
fl
fi
fi
 ๏ ‘King Lear’ interfuses two separate and distinct plots into one compact and well
wrought story.

๏ In fact, Shakespeare manages to achieve such a harmonious parallel between

plot and subplot that one plot seems to be the natural echo of
the other.
๏ In nearly every respect, the subplot and the main plot are the synthesis and
antithesis of each other.

๏ The sub-plot of “King Lear” both explicates and reinforces the thematic
concerns of the play. Both Gloucester and Lear are victims of lial ingratitude.

๏ The blinding of Gloucester is the physical equivalent of the blindness of Lear.

Both characters, as a result of their terrible experiences, achieve great wisdom
at the end of the play.

๏ However these parallels are not con ned to Gloucester and Lear. Cordelia’s
innate goodness is re ected in Edgar, while Goneril and Regan’s cold and
calculating callous natures are mirrored by Edmund.

๏ The tragic dimensions of Lear’s character are placed into greater relief by the
circumstances of Gloucester’s journey.

๏ The play’s core issues are re ected in both plots. Both men are destroyed,
physically and guratively by their offspring; yet ironically, it is the suffering
caused by this lial ingratitude that leads Lear and Gloucester to redemption,
forgiveness, and true insight into the human condition.

๏ As the play unfolds, the hubris and foolish naivety of both men lead to their
downfalls.

๏ However, it is only after they suffer that they nally appreciate the extent of their
sins.

๏ As the play opens, we see that Lear is a man who has little or no understanding
of some of the most fundamental aspects of the human condition.

๏ This is perhaps most clearly seen in one of the play’s most signi cant events:
The Love Test. As he blindly accepts the bland sycophancy of Goneril and
Regan over the honesty of his daughter Cordelia, we can see that Lear is
deeply awed.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 71

fl
fi
fi
fl
fl
fi
fi
fi
fi
 ๏ The Love Test reveals Lear’s deep insecurity to us. When he decides, in a
public forum, to explicitly link his decision to “divest” himself “of rule | interest
of territory [and] cares of state” to his daughters’ willingness to say which of
them: “doth love us most?” Lear lays bare his insecurity and his blindness.

๏ This moment is deeply insightful because it reveals to us a number of Lear’s

shortcomings.

๏ He is blind to the true nature of what love really means. This test debases love
and reduces it to a crass, nancial transaction where the empty rhetoric of
Goneril and Regan is rewarded.

๏ This decision also reveals to us that Lear simply does not know his daughters.

๏ Lear’s obvious foolishness in disowning Cordelia is matched by Gloucester’s

over hasty belief that Edgar is not to be trusted.

๏ In fact, his immediate response to Edmund’s allegations is not only naïve and
unreasonable, it is, much like Lear’s desire to hold a love test, utterly irrational:

abhorred villain, unnatural detested brutish villain.

Worse that brutish

๏ Furthermore, Gloucester’s decision to qualify his eldest son as being a “strong

and fasten’d villain” while simultaneously denying that he ever “got him”
echoes Lear’s behaviour.

๏ Much like Gloucester, Lear publicly disavows the “paternal care,” he owes
Cordelia. He denies any “propinquity and property of blood” that exist
between him and his daughter.

๏ In a manner that recalls Gloucester’s decision to “bar” the ports and “proclaim”
Edmund, Lear makes the irrational choice to hold her as “a stranger to his
heart.”

๏ The implications of these decisions are many. As a result of what they do both
men place themselves at the mercy of people who wish to destroy them.

๏ Gloucester’s gullibility and quick temper recall Lear’s naivety and ‘wrath’.

๏ In fact, it is remarkable to think that two such accomplished old men could be so
foolish.

๏ However, they are foolish and as a result, their ambitious cold hearted children
shamelessly exploit and punish their respective weaknesses.

๏ The lial disloyalty exhibited by Goneril, Regan and Edmund in this play is
shocking.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 72

fi
fi
 ๏ Again, clear parallels can be drawn between the plot and sub-plot as the
children of both Lear and Gloucester deliberately emasculate, torture, and
dehumanise their fathers.

๏ Goneril and Regan launch a premeditated and sustained attack on their father’s
sense of himself as King.

๏ They reduce his “train of knights” and in the process his sense of his own
majesty. And when Lear pleads with Goneril she replies:

Be then desir'd
By her that else will take the thing she begs
A little to disquantity your train.

๏ A little later, Regan utters some of the most calculated and callous words in the
play:

I pray you, father, being weak, seem so.

๏ For his part, the old king begins to realise that it was he who put power into the
hands of his tormenters. ‘I gave you all’ he says, to which Regan replies coldly
‘and in good time you gave it.’

๏ We gain a number of profound insights into Goneril, Regan and Edmund from
how they treat their parents.

๏ We learn that Lear’s daughters are opportunists, willing to exploit their father’s
weaknesses to gain more for themselves. They have no shame in anything they
do.

๏ Evil is one of the play’s most interesting thematic and philosophical concerns /
core issues. And the behaviour of these children leads us to draw a number of
disturbing conclusions about evil.

๏ In the rst instance we learn that evil characters take pleasure from in icting
pain and tormenting their enemies.

๏ We see this most clearly during the torture of Gloucester where Regan and
Cornwall outdo each other in cruelty.

๏ When Cornwall orders this servants to “hold the chair” while he sets his “foot"
on the old man’s “eyes,” Regan’s justi cation for removing the other eye is
apparent in her mocking cruelty:

One side will mock another;

the other too.

๏ Their callous indifference to the pain that they have in icted is revealed in
Cornwall’s fascination with the composition and appearance of Gloucester’s
mutilated eye:

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 73

fi
fi
fl
fl
 Out, vile jelly!
Where is thy lustre now?

๏ This is mirrored in their decision “to thrust him out at gates, and let him smell
His way to Dover.”

๏ It is also re ected in their desire to ensure that Gloucester’s suffering be

exacerbated by informing him that Edmund was the one who betrayed him.

๏ For his part, Edmund’s attitude to his father vividly mirrors that of the two
sisters.

๏ Like Goneril and Regan he is an opportunist who takes advantage of his

father’s weaknesses.

๏ Although Gloucester is foolish in con ding in Edmund, the ease with which
Edmund betrays his father is astonishing.

๏ He has no reservations about putting his father’s life at risk. Yet, just as with
Lear’s two daughters, Edmund cares about little except gaining power for
himself.

๏ With total satisfaction he proclaims that: ‘the younger rises when the old doth
fall’. This view of the natural order provides us with a further insight into
Shakespeare’s vision of evil. Namely, evil is destructive, inherently chaotic and
runs contrary to civilised society.

๏ ①+② ➠ In fact, one of the most interesting / striking/though-provoking /

captivating / memorable parallels that exists in the play is to be found in the way
in which Edmund, Goneril and Regan view nature and the natural world.

๏ ③ ➠ In Goneril and Regan’s view of the world, nature plays an important part;
Shakespeare associates numerous references to nature in the play with this
pair.

๏ The language and imagery used by Shakespeare to describe Goneril and

Regan explicitly seeks to link them to cruelty or horror.

๏ Goneril is a ‘kite’; her ingratitude has a ‘serpent’s tooth’: she strikes her father
most ‘serpent-like upon the very heart’.

๏ In Lear’s eyes, her ‘visage is wol sh’ and she has tied ‘sharp-toothed
unkindness like a vulture’ on her father's breast.

๏ ④ ➠ What makes all these images so effective is the manner in which they
simultaneously highlight various aspects of Goneril’s personality and
Shakespeare’s vision of evil.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 74

fl
fi
fi
 ๏ We can see her cruelty in the image of the “kite,” her sly cunning in the image of
the “serpent” and her harsh unforgiving nature in that of the “vulture.”

๏ Early on in the play, Edmund becomes the mouthpiece for this vision of
unbridled animal ambition when he tells us that:

Thou, Nature, art my goddess; to thy law

My services are bound . . .

๏ Goneril and Regan, though they do not possess Edmund's imaginative

drive and intelligence, worship Nature in the same destructive spirit.

๏ Nature provides the evil characters in the play with the freedom they hunger for,
it absolves them from the ‘plague of custom’, it justi es their vicious and
vindictive actions.

๏ They rely con dently on certain simple facts of nature: that they are young and
their father “old,” strong while he is in rm, and that their youth and nally that
their strength give them licence to ful l their desires however harmful those
desires may be.

๏ One of the most disturbing insights we gain into just how dangerous evil is
emerges from their behaviour. They believe that having the power to do
something is same thing as having the right to do it.

๏ In both the plot and the subplot, it is this horri c lial ingratitude, born of a
destructive and malicious vision of nature that leads to such immense suffering.

๏ Suffering is one of the play’s most interesting thematic and philosophical

concerns. The events of the play seem to suggest that suffering may be
necessary to purge one of hubris and blindness.

๏ And as Lear is consumed by madness on the heath, we begin to see that, this
suffering is a necessary prerequisite for his journey towards enlightenment.

๏ As soon as he is cast out into the wild and left to fend for himself against the
cruel elements, we witness a transformation in Lear’s outlook.

๏ He experiences compassion and regret when he realises that he has neglected

the poor and miserable people of his country. And a deep sense of guilt is
obvious when he admits: ‘I have ta’en too little care of this.’

๏ Gone is the arrogant self-important tyrant of the opening scene. In his place we
see a pathetic, broken man, consumed by insanity and haunted by the
memory of his daughters’ rejection.

๏ Although Lear’s tragedy may be traced back to his own foolish and impetuous
behaviour in Act one, the degree to which he suffers is disproportionate to the
sins he has committed. He is “a man more sinned against than sinning.”

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 75

fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 ๏ Lear’s journey to self-discovery through physical, psychological and emotional
pain is strikingly mirrored in the sub plot by the spiritual pilgrimage of
Gloucester.

๏ Although weak and impetuous, Gloucester like Lear is by no means an evil

man. His actions certainly do not merit the loss of his eyes.\

Leaving Cert 2016 “Throughout the course of the play, both Lear and Gloucester are
tragic characters, but Lear develops into the more heroic gure.”
➠ To what extent do you agree or disagree with this statement?
Support your answer with reference to the play, King Lear.

King Lear - a classic Shakespearean tragic gure – a powerful

man destroyed by his own aws – egotism, lack of judgement, etc.

Lear loses everything – kingdom/family/status/dignity/sanity/life

Gloucester is an equally/lesser tragic character – losing status/

family/sight/life

physical/psychological pain, active/passive natures, prosaic/poetic

language, levels of insight heighten heroic differences

Lear develops greater wisdom, compassion and self-knowledge,

becoming more heroic

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 76

fl
fi
fi
 Gloucester’s heroism is re ected in his nobility, decency, dignity in
enduring suffering

Lear’s tragic response to Cordelia’s death enhances his mythic

and heroic status Etc.

๏ However, it is this suffering that subsequently leads Gloucester to see clearly

and helps him to change and gain a profound knowledge of the human
condition.

๏ When Gloucester stumbles out onto the heath with no eyes, we can
immediately see that, like Lear, he has become more considerate, more
compassionate and consequently a better person.

๏ When one of his vassals offers him help, Gloucester responds with humility and
compassion telling the man:

away get thee, good friend be gone, thy comforts do

me no good at all, thee they may harm.

๏ Like Lear, his compassion and altruism are closely connected to his suffering.

๏ In the nal acts of the play, both Gloucester and Lear are redeemed, through
the love of their respective children Edgar and Cordelia.

๏ When Edgar encounters his father on the heath with blood streaming down his
face and no eyes, he is lled with compassion for the man that ‘proclaimed’
him and threatened to kill him.

๏ ‘Bless thy sweet eyes’ he says, shocked and appalled at the state of his
broken and battered father.

๏ He immediately forgives him for all his sins and says: ‘give me thy arm, poor
Tom shall lead thee’.

๏ Edgar’s kindness and empathy for his old father is touching. As he lovingly
leads the suffering Gloucester to Dover, Edgar does his best to restore not only
the old man’s dignity but also his belief in the gods.

๏ When Gloucester tries to kill himself, Edgar goes to great lengths to make it
appear that the gods saved him from death.

๏ And by doing so, he convinces his father that he was wrong in his belief that
humankind is little more than ‘ ies to wanton boys’, that ‘kill us for their
sport’.
ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 77
fi
fi
fl
fl
 ๏ At the end of the play, we learn that when Edgar revealed his identity to
Gloucester the latter died: ‘twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief.’

๏ Finally, the old man is liberated from his painful life, and he dies redeemed.

๏ Similarly, Cordelia receives her father with the very same compassion and
forgiveness that Edgar has shown his Gloucester.

๏ She realises the true nature of the harm that has been done to Lear and
attempts in a conscious and deliberate fashion to restore his dignity.

๏ If Goneril and Regan’s attack on Lear had been calculated to emasculate him
and reduce his sense of himself as regent, then Cordelia attempts to undo this.

๏ She refers to him with deference and respect. She clothes him in regal attire
and asks him to hold his hand in ‘benediction’ over her.

๏ As a result, Lear is a changed man whose enormous hubris, pride and ego
have been purged by suffering.

Identify aspects of Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, that, in your opinion, lead us to draw
profound conclusions about su ering. Discuss the disturbing conclusions that may be drawn
about this subject from the aspects of the play you have identi ed. Support your answer with
reference to the text.

Leaving Cert Deferred 23

๏ However, just as Edgar saves Gloucester, it is Cordelia’s love that redeems Lear. He
now understands that real love is more than attery.

๏ Their re-union is, for him, a natural bond that has been restored:
he that parts us shall bring
a brand from heaven.

This is why her death devastates him and plunges him into despair:
thou’lt come no more,

๏ To him it must seem like the death of order and harmony, and the death of love itself.
As a result, like Gloucester, his ‘ awed heart’ gives way.

๏ Lear’s downfall is vividly mirrored in Gloucester’s painful pilgrimage to enlightenment.

๏ Thematically both the subplot and plot have a great deal in common.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 78

ff
fl
fl
fi
๏ They remind us of the power of love to overcome suffering and that sometimes pain
and anguish are necessary prerequisites for salvation and self-knowledge.

Imagery

Imagery plays a Characterisation Question words Interesting ways Techniques

role in furthering hinting at imagery
our understanding Setting & include ➠ How does Themes
of ➠ Atmosphere Shakespeare

Moments of Strikingly Captivating

Heightened Drama

Themes & Thought-provoking Shakespeare

Thematic Concerns portrays

Fascinating

➡ Animal imagery is used throughout the play. At times it lays emphasis to the
chaos that Lear has created by renouncing the throne.

➡ Images that evoke the: stalking, creeping, crawling, slithering world of animals,
insects, and the more repulsive “monsters of the deep” dominate the language
of the play.

Lear and Imagery

① ➠ Throughout play Shakespeare relies on animal imagery to further and

deepen our understanding of Lear’s character. ② ➠ In particular, he employs

such images to express Lear’s feelings of anger, rejection, indignation, wrath,

and vengeance.

① ➠ Throughout play Shakespeare deepens our understanding of Lear’s struggle with his
daughters. ② ➠ And in order to do so, he relies heavily on animal imagery to express
Lear’s feelings of anger, rejection, indignation, wrath, and vengeance.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 79

 ① ➠ Shakespeare also relies on imagery to convey to us the changes that take place in
Lear’s character. ② ➠ In particular, Lear’s journey from arrogance to understanding is
emphasised by the play’s imagery patterns and symbolism. At the beginning of the play,
Lear’s blindness to the truth is highlighted by images connected to sight and blindness.

① ➠ Furthermore imagery is also used to to provide psychological insights in Lear’s

daughters. ② ➠ For instance, nature imagery is used to deepen our appreciation of
Goneril’s cruelty and the bene cent quality of Cordelia’s love. ③ + ➠ The language used
by the Gentleman to describe Cordelia is lled with gures of speech that emphasise her
virtuous and moral nature, her “cheeks” are “delicate”, her tears are “pearls from
diamonds dropped”, she is a queen over her emotions, and her reaction to what has
happened is likened to “sunshine and rain” at once.

๏ Animal imagery, which suggests the moral derangement of the world,

rst inserts itself into the play’s language when Lear arrives at Goneril’s
house.

When Oswald neglects to answer his question as to the whereabouts of his

๏
daughter, we witness a calculated attempt to remind Lear of his place in this
new world order.
This breach of decorum, respect and reverence for authority upsets the King
๏
greatly and is the rst stage of the emotional turmoil which causes him to go
mad. His resentment and, perhaps, contempt, are expressed in the bitter epithet
‘mongrel’.

๏ When Oswald reminds Lear that he is no longer the King and is now
merely his ‘lady's father,’ Lear’s indignation is spurred, and the imagery
becomes more intense.

He calls Oswald a ‘whoreson dog’ and ‘cur’. In fact, in the course of the play,
๏
Oswald is frequently dehumanised by being likened variously to: a ‘rat’, a ‘dog’
and a ‘goose’.

๏ From expressing resentment and indignation the imagery becomes grimmer,

more serious, and more vividly suggestive of both Lear's moral
condition and the frightening possibilities that his future may now hold.

๏ The Fool's bitter statement:

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long, That it had it

head bit off by its young. (I. iv. 234-236)

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 80

fi
fi
fi
fi
fi
 ④ ➠ is not only a sharp and crude image of ingratitude, but it is also an image
which furthers our understanding of Lear’s: foolishness, his
misjudgement, his improvident helplessness and his egoistical blindness.

๏ The imagery implied in the verb ‘bit off’ is by transference an image of human
decapitation and a darkly prophetic foreshadowing of what Lear is to experience
from his children.

๏ In this image is implicit the lack of lial gratitude, love and even
common humanity which are already in fact Lear's destiny.

๏ The image is so apt because, even though Lear seems to ignore it, it
succeeds immediately in capturing the full tragic intensity of his situation.
๏
๏
๏ As Lear becomes irritated by Oswald and shocked by the callousness of
Goneril, who demands he give up his knights, the imagery changes so
as to match his emotional state.

๏ He screams his indignation and his anger at the filial

ingratitude of Goneril whom he now feels is a ‘degenerate
bastard’.

๏ In his eyes, she has become a ‘hideous seamonster’ and

a ‘detested kite’.

๏ A kite is a falcon-like bird which preys on small quarry. The analogy is clear;
Goneril has decided to prey on Lear who has been weakened by his loss of
power.

๏ Shifting from the image of the “kite,” Lear’s anger intensi es. His frustration and
rage, which seethe in him against Goneril, reach their climax when he curses
her by praying to nature to make her sterile and by capturing his rising
obsession with “ingratitude” in the image of a ‘serpent's tooth’.

๏ Having employed the images of “sea-monster,” “kite,” and “serpent’s tooth”

he extends further the notion of Goneril's cruelty and sly, cunning nature by
drawing on other images from the animal world.

๏ He speaks of her ‘wolvish visage’ and likens her to a ‘she fox’. These angry
images blend with his passionate desire for vengeance / justice, when he states
that Regan will ‘ ay’ Goneril's face when she learns of her sister’s ingratitude.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 81

fl
fi
fi
 ๏ The Fool then chimes in with a reminder of the fact that if anyone were to catch
a fox like this daughter that they would soon to be led to the ‘slaughter’.

➡ Once he has ed to his ‘Beloved Regan’, Lear re ects upon the love and
generosity that he has shown his daughters and upon the unnatural ingratitude
shown him by Goneril in return.

➡ The image that he uses to describe his sense of shock and outraged paternal
affection takes the form of ‘sharp-toothed unkindness’, which like a ‘vulture’,
tears at his heart.

➡ In his rising anger at Regan's rejection of his grievances and her demand that
he ask Goneril's forgiveness and return instead to her, Lear reacts by claiming
that a serpent's tongue has “struck” him to his heart.

➡ Imagery linked to the wounding of the King’s heart by vultures and serpents

marks a crisis in the rising action of the play and

shapes our understanding of Lear’s tragic journey.
➡ As the animal imagery gathers in intensity, it is as if we are being prepared for
the storm that is about to break.

➡ Lear reacts to Regan's rejection of him, by refusing her demand to dismiss fty
of his knights and by his determination, instead, to: ‘abjure all roofs and be a
comrade with the wolf and the owl’.

➡ So, when Lear insists that he would rather be out in the storm, his wish is
granted with callous zeal and the doors to Gloucester’s castle are shut.

① ➠ Broad Statement Ideas

Animal imagery in King Lear serves as a powerful tool to re ect the moral derangement of
the world and Lear’s tragic journey. From the calculated breaches of decorum at Goneril’s
house to Lear’s impassioned cries in the storm, the progression of these images
underscores the depth of his suffering and the devastating effects of betrayal.

②➠ Supporting Statement
Through a series of dehumanising comparisons, Shakespeare uses animal imagery to
illustrate Lear’s growing anguish, his daughters’ cruelty, and his increasing alienation from
the natural order. The imagery evolves alongside Lear’s emotional state, becoming darker
and more intense as the play unfolds.

③ ➠ Content with Support

The rst instance of animal imagery occurs at Goneril’s house, where Lear’s authority is
undermined by Oswald’s disrespectful behaviour. When Oswald fails to answer Lear’s
question about his daughter’s whereabouts, the King expresses his resentment by calling

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 82

fi
fl
fl
fl
fi
 him a “mongrel.” This epithet captures Lear’s indignation and marks the beginning of his
emotional turmoil. Oswald’s reminder that Lear is now merely his “lady’s father” spurs
further outrage, prompting Lear to escalate the imagery, calling Oswald a “whoreson dog”
and “cur.” These animalistic insults emphasise Lear’s perception of the moral degradation
surrounding him and his increasing frustration at his diminished status.

As the tension rises, the Fool provides a bitter commentary on Lear’s situation through the
image of a hedge-sparrow feeding a cuckoo only to have its head bitten off. The verb “bit
off” foreshadows the decapitation of Lear’s dignity and power by his ungrateful daughters.
This crude yet vivid image encapsulates Lear’s foolishness, his inability to see the true
nature of his children, and the tragic consequences of his misjudgements.

The imagery becomes even more visceral when Lear reacts to Goneril’s demand that he
give up his knights. In his eyes, Goneril transforms into a “degenerate bastard,” a “hideous
sea monster,” and a “detested kite.” The kite, a bird of prey, symbolises Goneril’s predatory
nature as she exploits Lear’s vulnerability. Lear’s rage culminates in the image of a
“serpent’s tooth,” which conveys the pain of lial ingratitude and the sting of betrayal. His
use of “wolvish visage” and “she fox” further extends the depiction of Goneril’s cruelty and
cunning, blending his anger with his desire for vengeance.

④ ➠ Causal Statement
What makes these images so compelling is their ability to capture both Lear’s internal
anguish and the external chaos surrounding him. The progression of animal imagery
re ects the escalating intensity of Lear’s emotions and the moral corruption of the world he
inhabits. For example, the vulture-like “sharp-toothed unkindness” that tears at Lear’s
heart vividly conveys the depth of his grief and his realisation of the unnatural ingratitude
shown by his daughters. Similarly, the serpent’s tongue that strikes him to the heart
highlights the devastating betrayal Lear experiences from Regan.

③ ➠ Content with Support (Repeated)

Lear’s reaction to Regan’s rejection is marked by a pivotal shift in imagery. Refusing her
demand to dismiss his knights, Lear declares his intention to “abjure all roofs and be a
comrade with the wolf and the owl.” This statement foreshadows Lear’s descent into
madness as he chooses to reject human society and align himself with the natural world,
which he perceives as less cruel than his daughters. His determination to face the storm
rather than endure further humiliation symbolises his de ance and his nal attempt to
reclaim his dignity.

④ ➠ Causal Statement (Repeated)

The growing intensity of animal imagery shapes our understanding of Lear’s tragic journey
by illustrating his emotional and psychological unravelling. Each image serves as a marker
of Lear’s escalating despair and his deepening alienation from those he once loved and
trusted. Moreover, the animal imagery anticipates the chaos of the storm, both literal and
metaphorical, that will engulf Lear and lead to his ultimate downfall.

⑤ ➠ Overview
Through the powerful use of animal imagery, Shakespeare captures the moral and
emotional collapse of Lear’s world. These images not only re ect Lear’s suffering but also
highlight the cruelty and ingratitude of his daughters, the erosion of natural order, and the

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 83

fl
fi
fi
fl
fi
inevitability of his tragic fate. The imagery’s evolution—from bitter epithets to visceral
metaphors of predation and wounding—mirrors Lear’s descent into madness and the
profound intensity of his anguish, offering the audience a vivid and harrowing portrayal of
human vulnerability and betrayal.

Discuss how Shakespeare’s use of language, including imagery, plays an important part in
developing our understanding of one of the following aspects of his play, King Lear: themes;
characterisation; setting and atmosphere. Develop your answer with reference to the text.
Macbeth 2019

③+④➠

The Storm as an Image, Metaphor or Symbol

① ➠ The storm is one of the play’s most signi cant imagery patterns. ② ➠ In
particular, the storm is vital in shaping our understanding of Lear’s tragic progress. // The
storm plays a pivotal role is directing our understanding of the themes of suffering // self-
knowledge // chaos // disorder // madness …

Shakespeare takes the greatest of care to prepare us for the storm scene in the Third Act.
At the conclusion of the Second Act there are several references to its approach:

Cornwall: Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm.

Gloucester: Alack, the night comes on, and the bleak winds
Do sorely ruf e. For many miles about
There's scarce a bush.

Regan: Shut up your doors.

Cornwall: Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well. Come out o' th' storm.

๏ In scene i of Act III the clouds continue to gather:

Kent: Who's there, besides foul weather?

Gentleman: One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 84

fl
fi
 ๏ This descriptive speech given by the Gentleman is extremely important to the
great storm speeches of the following scenes, because it suggests in advance
just how wild and ferocious this night is. It also anticipates the type of imagery
that will dominate the storm scene.

๏ In order to deepen our appreciation of just how violent the weather is

Shakespeare draws once again on animal imagery.

๏ According to The Gentleman, the stormy night into which Lear has retreated, is
one from which the ‘cub-drawn bear’, ‘the lion’, and the ‘belly-pinched wolf’
would ee.

๏ Contending with the ‘fretful elements’, tearing his at his hair and striving to
‘out-scorn the con icting wind and rain’, Lear is pursued by his ‘heart-
struck injuries’.

๏ The “belly pinched wolf”, a symbol of greed, and “the owl,” which in this play
acts a symbol of malevolence, are the evil companions the king expects to meet
on the heath.

๏ The truth is that even the most irrational animals have left the “barren heath” to
seek protection, while the king, ‘unbonneted’, and abandoned by every
creature, stands alone against animal nature, human nature, and, as he
discovers, cosmic nature, accompanied only by the Fool and his needling
wisdom.

๏ Battling with the elements, Lear pits himself against the storm. He echoes it and
de es it and in the process he becomes the very image of it.

๏ He creates it dramatically; but not by detached description, which would merely

let us see it through his eyes. He is in fact, possessed by the raging power of
the storm.

๏ And during this crucial moment in the play’s development, Lear is completely at
one with the raging tempest.

๏ ④ ➠ The storm works as a symbolic image on several levels. It is a

physical expression of the state of Lear’s kingdom / world
— the country is now in complete political disarray and
society is out of order — and occurs at the precise moment when Lear
loses all of his authority.

๏ ④ ➠ It foreshadows his madness and is a re ection of Lear’s internal

confusion.

๏ Finally, the violent storm demonstrates the awesome power of nature, which
seems to cry out against the events of the play.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 85

fi
fl
fl
fl
 ๏ The storm is also an external manifestation of the forces of evil now ranged
against.

๏ to appreciate
Don’t forget that Lear’s battle with the storm helps us

more fully the tragic and heroic dimensions of his

character.

In the play King Lear, Shakespeare relies on a number of interesting techniques to convey
to us the tragic and heroic dimensions of Lear’s character.

๏ Its turbulence forces the powerless king to recognise his own mortality and
human frailty and to at last develop a sense of humility.4

๏ Lear sees the storm as having conspired with his ‘pernicious daughters’ to join
their battle against a head so old and white as his.

๏ Later in the scene, the Fool employs the image of the ‘louse’, a small, wingless,
blood-sucking insect to provide us with a concrete example of the contrast
between Lear's powerless state and the power his daughters now hold over
him.

๏ ④ ➠ The image of the louse offers us a sense of Lear's

powerlessness, because the louse is of course tiny and puny compared to
any of the animals with whom his daughters are associated.
Xxx
➡ The notion of descent to a lower state of existence is emphasised by the arrival
of Edgar.

➡ When Lear meets Edgar disguised as Poor Tom he is certain that nothing could
have subdued nature to such a lowly state but his ‘unkind daughters’.

➡ Expressive of this, and linking Edgar's condition with Lear’s abject state on the
stormy heath, are the images employed by Edgar // Poor Tom when he
describes himself as being:

[. . .] hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in

greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey

4 See Scene Summary Handout 3 for a sample essay on the storm.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 86

 When he recognises in Edgar the natural state of mankind, the process of Lear’s descent
into an animal state is complete.

๏ Paradoxically, this descent coincides with Lear’s

growing understanding of the human condition:

Ha! here's three on's us are sophisticated! Thou are the thing itself: unaccommodated man
is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings!

➡ Bereft of reason, mad, tearing off his clothes (in themselves a really important
symbol / image in the play), Lear is now little better than the beasts.

➡ He has reached the very bottom, which for the past two acts, so much of the
imagery foreshadowed.

Blindness as a Theme and an Image

➡ Blindness is another important imagery strand which will be dealt with in a

separate handout.

➡ Both Gloucester and Lear suffer from an inability to see the truth of their
situations.

➡ It is not until Gloucester actually loses his eyes and Lear loses his mind that
they begin to truly “see”.

➡ The words “eye”, “sight”, and “see” are used repeatedly through the play. It is
only tting that they meet near Dover toward the end of the play and
commiserate about how their blindness has cost them dearly: “If thou would
weep my fortunes, take my eyes,” says Lear.

➡ When Lear appears at Dover (itself another important symbol) mad,

‘fantastically dressed with wild owers’, some of the imagery he uses (drawn
from a wide range of human and animal images) corresponds to his new state
of mind: ‘crow-keeper’, ‘mouse’, ‘bird’, ‘gilded butter ies’; this is the
innocent, naïve imagery of childhood or senility, a harmless,
neutral, non-provocative imagery which is particularly effective in capturing
Lear’s state of mind at this point in the play.

➡ Animal imagery is used once again, but this time it is employed to describe
Lear’s newfound sense of wisdom:

They attered me like a dog.

Blended with this newly gained insight is a critical bitterness that acknowledges the
corruption of the world.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 87

fi
fl
fl
fl
 ➡ Reasoned cynicism has replaced the violated and outraged sense of
persecution which obsessed him for so much of the rst two acts.

➡ However, Lear’s journey to reason and, therefore, to humanity is cut short

somewhat by the tragic the death of Cordelia.

➡ His reaction against the injustice of Cordelia's death and the needless waste of
goodness in the world is expressed once again in animal imagery:

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all?

1. Broad Statement
One of the most important imagery patterns in King Lear is that of the storm. The storm is
not merely a backdrop; it is a central, multi-layered symbol that shapes our understanding
of Lear’s tragic progress.

2. Supporting Statement
The storm functions on several levels: it mirrors Lear’s inner turmoil, symbolises the chaos
in the kingdom, foreshadows his descent into madness, and re ects the awesome,
uncontrollable power of nature. Shakespeare carefully prepares us for the storm, ensuring
its symbolic resonance is deeply felt.

3. Content with Support

At the end of Act II, Shakespeare sets the stage for the storm with several foreboding
references. Cornwall warns, “’Twill be a storm,” while Gloucester notes, “Alack, the night
comes on, and the bleak winds do sorely ruf e.” Regan and Cornwall’s repeated
instruction to “shut up your doors” emphasises the approaching tempest and heightens the
sense of foreboding.

This preparation continues in Act III, Scene i, where the Gentleman vividly describes the
storm’s ferocity. His account introduces the wildness of the night and anticipates the
animal imagery that will dominate the storm scenes. He speaks of how even the “cub-
drawn bear,” “the lion,” and the “belly-pinched wolf” would ee from such weather. These
animals, typically symbols of strength, ferocity, and hunger, are now reduced to fear,
highlighting the storm’s overwhelming power.

Lear, however, does not retreat like these creatures. Instead, he stands alone on the
barren heath, unprotected and abandoned. Battling the “fretful elements,” tearing at his
hair, and striving to “out-scorn the con icting wind and rain,” Lear becomes one with the
storm. He is no longer a detached observer; he embodies its raging force. His de ance
against the tempest mirrors his battle against the forces of betrayal, loss, and cosmic
injustice.

4. Causal Statement
The storm’s imagery is pivotal because it works on multiple symbolic levels. First, it re ects
the state of Lear’s kingdom. Just as the tempest wreaks havoc on the land, the kingdom is

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 88

fl
fl
fi
fl
fl
fi
fl
 in political disarray. Lear’s authority has collapsed, and the natural order has been
upended. The storm’s physical chaos is a manifestation of the moral and political chaos in
the play.

Second, the storm foreshadows Lear’s madness and mirrors his internal confusion. Lear’s
wild de ance against the elements symbolises his inability to control the forces within and
around him. He is possessed by the storm, becoming its dramatic embodiment, which
heightens our understanding of his psychological breakdown.

Finally, the storm underscores the awesome power of nature, which seems to cry out
against the events of the play. It dwarfs human concerns, reminding us of the fragility of
man against the forces of the natural and cosmic world. Lear’s isolation during the storm—
abandoned by his daughters and society—underscores his vulnerability and deepens the
tragic dimensions of his character.

3. Content with Support (Repeated)

Shakespeare also uses the storm to enhance the animal imagery that permeates the play.
The “belly-pinched wolf,” symbolising greed, and the “owl,” representing malevolence, are
described as having ed from the heath. Lear, however, remains, exposed and
“unbonneted.” Even the most irrational creatures seek shelter, while Lear pits himself
against the storm, alone in his suffering and rage. This stark contrast between animal
instinct and human folly highlights Lear’s tragic position as a man who has lost his place in
the natural order.

Lear’s de ance of the storm and his immersion in its violence elevate him to a heroic
dimension. By battling with the elements, he demonstrates a raw, primal courage that
commands our respect and pity. His struggle is not merely physical but symbolic of his
ght against the betrayals and injustices that have stripped him of everything.

4. Causal Statement (Repeated)

Lear’s battle with the storm allows us to appreciate the tragic and heroic dimensions of his
character more fully. While the tempest mirrors his inner confusion and descent into
madness, it also re ects his resilience and refusal to succumb entirely. This duality
deepens our understanding of Lear as both a deeply awed and profoundly noble gure.

5. Overview
The storm in King Lear is a masterful symbol that operates on multiple levels. It re ects the
political chaos of the kingdom, foreshadows Lear’s madness, and highlights the
overwhelming power of nature. Through vivid animal imagery and Lear’s de ance against
the tempest, Shakespeare portrays the king’s tragic journey with stunning intensity. The
storm ultimately helps us to see Lear as a gure of immense complexity, embodying both
the depths of human vulnerability and the heights of heroic resilience.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 89

fi
fi
fi
fl
fl
fi
fl
fi
fl
fi
In the “King Lear,” Shakespeare relies on a number of imagery patterns to further our
understanding of the play’s themes and characters.

The Appeal of the Play to a Modern Audience

Tragedy is a form that explores the human condition, and deals with universal themes
that are timeless, and King Lear is a play that speaks as clearly to audiences today as it
did in Shakespeare’s time. It is primarily a play about suffering and about self-discover y.
Both its main plot and sub plot present us with por traits of elderly men – Lear and
Gloucester - who are victims of their own follies and who must endure a penance of
physical and mental torment before they can find redemption. Their stories are
fascinating for the elements of human nature that they reveal. The characters of the
play – children, parents, friends, and ser vants – will be familiar to ever y audience, while
love, evil, ambition, avarice, ingratitude, power, and jealousy are just some of the themes
and issues that make this play such a dramatic and powerful experience.

The most modern character is the play is probably Edmund. A bastard child
who stands ‘in the plague of custom’ and lacks conventional identity, he resents the
curiosity of nations that deprives him of title and lands – why brand they us with ‘base’?
with ‘baseness’? ‘bastardy’? Edmund is the villain of the play, a man who revolts against
‘the holy cords’ of family relationships and sets out to destroy his father and his
brother, ‘Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land’. Edmund is ambitious, and in the
Elizabethan world where the Chain of Being asser ts a Divine order of hierarchy, his
ambition is viewed suspiciously. However, for the modern audience, he is merely a
determined and ruthless individual intent on achieving his materialistic goals. His duping
of the vir tuous and trusting Edgar, by deviously inventing a conspiratorial letter that
suggests a plot to harm their father Gloucester, is a wonderful piece of mischief.
Edmund sneers at the ‘excellent fopper y of the world’ and takes as much delight in the
cleverness of his scheming as the audience does in watching its execution. There is an
element of the thriller in his machinations. His schemes are both simple and
outrageous for their outlandishness and one cannot help be appalled and yet dazzled
by the way in which he manipulates the trust of the people who love him. He tells
Gloucester that the letter must be ‘an essay or taste of my vir tue’ from Edgar and that
he ‘found it thrown in the casement of my closet’. At once, he insidiously complements
the feelings in the letter by attributing adverse comments about Gloucester’s age to

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 90

Edgar, ‘the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue’. It is a
wonderful piece of invention that alienates Edgar from Gloucester, ‘Abominable villain’,
and results in Gloucester handing Edmund control, ‘Frame the business after your own
wisdom’. Shakespeare, here, has concocted a most wonderful subterfuge and drama to
hook his audience. From the moment, Edmund announces, in soliloquy, his intent to
have titles and land, we watch enthralled, wondering just when, or if, he will be
discovered. It has the appeal of a thriller, something that modern audiences are
addicted to.

What would also grip and shock a modern audience, no less than an
Elizabethan audience, is that a child could so deceive a parent and be so calculating and
unfeeling towards a sibling – ‘here he stood in the dark….mumbling of wicked charms’.
When Edmund’s scheming reaches its zenith with his betrayal of Gloucester to
Cornwall and Regan, resulting in the most horrendous tor ture and blinding of his
natural father- ‘He that will think to live till he be old/ Give me some help! – O cruel!
O you gods! ‘- even his ambition and his sense of impoverishment cannot excuse such
wickedness. His actions are not only mercenar y and mendacious but are also evil. They
go against the laws of nature. Gloucester’s pathetic and misguided cries for Edmund’s
help – ‘Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature/to quit this horrid act’ – are incredibly
poignant, and his suffering is intensified to breaking point when he learns the truth, O,
my follies! Then Edgar was abused! Such incredibly intense and dramatic scenes would
move any audience. However, in an age where we have become used to news repor ts
about horrors committed in wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, and almost inured to the
repor ts of killings by criminals on our streets, the terror and evil depicted in this scene
would once again reveal the human cost of such ruthlessness.

Of course, the focus of the play is Lear, a man more sinn’d against than sinning.
Gloucester’s stor y is merely the mirror of Lear’s. Just as Gloucester’s life is ripped apar t
by a callous and scheming child, so too Lear is destroyed not only by his own
arrogance and vanity but also by ungrateful, and unscrupulous children, Goneril and
Regan. The play is about family disintegration and about ageism, something that is as
fascinating and compelling today as it was in Shakespeare’s time. ‘Monster ingratitude’
lies at the hear t of it. Glopucester and Lear have been neglectful fathers, how else
could one explain the lack of genuine feeling that their children display. Lear’s older
daughters cannot wait to get him out of the way, regarding him as old and in the way,
‘tis the infirmity of his age’. At a time when our own government attempted to take

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 91

vulnerability is ver y relevant and identifiable. How many elderly people in our own
countr y, after a lifetime’s work, would echo his accusation of ‘monster ingratitude’ at
the way they are being treated.

Lear refers to them as unnatural hags, pernicious daughters, pelican daughters.

They break his hear t with their conniving and their viciousness: flattering him to
acquire his kingdom (I love you more than word can wield the matter), and then
turning on him (to wilful men/the injuries that they themselves procure/must be their
schoolmasters). Their true nature is one of viciousness and cruelty. Throughout the
play, they are regularly referred to in metaphors of wild, predator y animals; serpents,
wolves, kites, vultures, boars. It is this imager y that aler ts the audience to a fascinating
and telling difference between their wickedness and that of Edmund. And it is
something that makes the language of the play so interesting for a modern audience.
Edmund’s motives are political as well as emotional, he resents his illegitimacy and also
craves status and power. His behaviour is ruthless, but his motives are personal and
political. We can identify with him.

However, the behaviour of Lear’s two scheming daughters is more primitive,

more animalistic. Their actions are driven by animal desires, by appetite. Their avarice is
based upon animal instinct and cunning rather than by political logic. Their rivalr y is
different from that of Edmund and Edgar. The rivalr y of Gloucester’s children revolves
around resentment and jealousy (my invention thrive/Edmund the base/shall to
th’legitimate), and justice and retribution (thou ar t a traitor/False to thy gods, thy
brother, and thy father), but the competition between Regan and Goneril is motivated
by unbridled lust (Edmund and I have talked;/And more convenient is he for my hand/
Than for your lady’s). This rivalr y for the company of Edmund is another compelling
aspect of the play.

As the plot progresses, there are more and more strands added to the plot,
just as we find in modern film and television. The domestic scenes between Goneril and
Albany, for example, are cer tainly quite contemporar y in their depiction of a marriage
in a state of collapse. Albany and Goneril no longer share a common vision and she is
attracted to someone else, Edmund (To thee a woman’s ser vices are due;/ My fool
usurps my bed). The arguments between Albany and Goneril are filled with tension and
acrimony. Goneril refers to him as a Milk-livered man….who hast not in thy brows an
eye discerning /Thine honour from thy suffering. Her contempt for her husband is

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 92

 It is not just a difference in personalities, it is a difference in values and
attitudes. Albany cannot comprehend the level of callousness and evil that he witnesses.
Although he is not critical of Goneril’s acquisition of lands through pretence and
flatter y, he finds it difficult to countenance the abuse suffered by Lear and Gloucster.
He regards Goneril as evil, Proper deformity shows not in the fiend/So horrid as in
woman, and he takes the death of Cornwall as a sign from the gods that nemesis is
close at hand, This shows you are above,/You justicers. Watching their interaction we
witness. an emotional war. Albany’s confronting of Goneril’s about her conspiracy to
have him killed is an incredibly dramatic moment. Shakespeare provides his characters
with fully developed lives and emotions. So, Regan and Goneril move beyond their
concern with their father because of their attraction to Edmund, and this provides the
plot of the play with added breadth.

The play then, will appeal to the intelligence of the modern audience. It is a
play of intrigue and scheming. But it is also a play with a good deal of action. Kent
attacks Oswald for his insulting of the king, and later in the play Edgar defends his
father against the immoral Oswald and slays him. Edgar eventually fights Edmund in a
duel about honour, Goneril poisons Regan, and kills herself rather than face justice (the
laws are mine not thine), Coredlia is hanged and Kent is tor tured in the most
monstrous fashion. It is a play where people pay dearly for their mistakes and for their
wickedness.

However, at the hear t of the play is a wonderful por trait of love and the
essential goodness that lies at the core of human nature. Characters such as Kent, the
Fool, Edgar, and Cordelia are vir tuous and loyal, even when confronted by criticism or
abuse. Cordelia personifies love. In contrast to her sisters, she is genuinely devoted to
her father but lacks that glib and oily ar t that Regan and Goneril use to fool Lear, and
admits that her love is more ponderous than my tongue and that she cannot heave my
hear t into my mouth. Even while Lear listens to Goneril and Regan profess their love
for him, we – like Kent – watch in horror, recognizing the injustice and folly, the hideous
rashness, that sets the train of disastrous events into motion.

Cordelia’s eventual return and reconciliation with Lear is, then, in the context
of these events remarkable. The scene where she forgives him his mistakes is incredibly
poignant. Before Lear wakes from his sleep, she remarks on the suffering he has had to

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 93

he has sur vived, ‘Tis wonder that thy life and wits had not concluded all. The old man’s
remarks that Thou ar t a soul in bliss emphasises her goodness of nature and the depth
of her love. The scene is then played out like a musical fugue with each character’s
remarks picked up and echoed by the other. Lear asks for forgiveness, she says no need
and asks for his blessing. She kneels before him, and he kneels before her. It is a
remarkable illustration of the human capacity for love and forgiveness, par ticularly
when framed by the violence that we witness against Gloucester and the injustice
endured by Edgar.

Yet there is nothing sentimental about Shakespeare’s vision. The play’s ending is
a challenge to modern audiences, just as it was to the Elizabethans. Politically, Albany
wrestles power from Edmund and Goneril, confronting them with their conspiracy to
kill him. In terms of the presence of power and evil in world, there is the Captain’s
senseless hanging of Cordelia because he is worried about advancing in his career, and
finally there is the death of Lear from a broken hear t Why should a dog, a horse, a rat
have life,/And thou no breath at all? When Albany says The oldest hath borne most;
we that are young/Shall never see so much, nor live so long, he draws attention to the
suffering at the hear t of the play and to how the play has been a drama about the
tensions and struggles between the young and the old. These are universal themes.
They are themes that focus on the tensions between generations: the old unwilling to
let go of power and position, and the young in a hurr y to possess it; the young
disrespectful of the wisdom that accompanies age, and the old often arrogant in their
unwillingness to listen to advice.

King Lear contains all of this and more! It is a play with recognisable characters
caught in situations as relevant today as they were in Elizabethan times.

ANIMAL IMAGERY

Animal imagery is used throughout the play. Images that evoke the stalking,
creeping, crawling, slithering world of animals, insects, and the more repulsive
monsters of the deep dominate the language of the play. Animal imagery is
frequently used by Shakespeare to lay emphasis on the chaos that Lear has

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 94

are used to express or to intensify Lear’s expressions of anger, rejection,
indignation, wrath, and vengeance.

Images associated with lower animals, which suggest the moral derangement
of the world, first insert themselves into the play’s language when Lear arrives
at Goneril’s castle. When Oswald neglects to answer Lear's question as to the
whereabouts of his daughter, we witness a calculated attempt to remind Lear of
his place in the new world order. This breach of decorum, respect and
reverence for authority stirs a mild resentment in the King and is the first stage
of the emotional turmoil which causes him to go mad. His resentment and,

perhaps, contempt, are expressed in the bitter epithet ‘mongrel’. When Oswald

reminds Lear that he is no longer the King, and is now merely his ‘lady's

father’, Lear's indignation is spurred, and the animal imagery becomes more

intense. He calls Oswald a ‘whoreson dog’ and ‘cur’. In fact, in the course of

the play, Oswald is frequently dehumanised by being likened variously to a

‘rat’, a ‘dog’ and a ‘goose’.

From the evocation of mere resentment and indignation the animal

imagery becomes grimmer, more serious, and more vividly suggestive of both
Lear's moral condition and the frightening possibilities that his future may hold.
The Fool's bitter statement:

For you know, nuncle,

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo so long,

That it had it head bit off by it young.

(I. iv. 234-236)

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 95

is not only a sharp and crude image of ingratitude, but also an image of Lear's
own foolishness. In this single image we glimpse Lear’s misjudgement, his
improvident helplessness, and of course his egotistical blindness. The imagery

implied in the verb ‘bit off’ is by transference an image of human decapitation

and a darkly prophetic forewarning of what Lear will experience from his
children. The image makes implicit the lack of gratitude, love and even
common humanity which lie in store for Lear. There is a perfect irony to the fact
that, although Lear is blind to what this image represents, it succeeds
nevertheless in capturing perfectly his tragic situation. As Lear grows
increasingly emotional, infuriated by Oswald and shocked by the callousness of
Goneril, who demands that he be shorn of his knights, the imagery changes to
match his emotional state. He screams his indignation and his anger at the filial

ingratitude of Goneril, whom he now feels is a ‘degenerate bastard’. In his

eyes, she has become a ‘hideous seamonster’ and a ‘detested kite’. A kite is a

falcon-like bird which preys on small quarry. The analogy is clear; Goneril has
decided to prey on Lear who has been weakened by his loss of power. Shifting
from the image of the kite, Lear’s anger intensifies. His frustration and rage,
which seethe in him against Goneril, reach their climax when he curses her by
praying to nature to make her sterile and by objectifying his rising obsession

with ingratitude in the image of a ‘serpent's tooth’. Having employed the

images of sea-monster, kite, and serpent he gives further extension to the

notion of Goneril's cruelty and sly, cunning nature by additional images from

the animal world. He speaks of her ‘wolvish visage’ and likens her to a ‘fox’.

These angry images blend with his passionate desire for vengeance. He

promises that when Regan hears of this she will ‘flay’ Goneril's face. The Fool

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 96

then reminds him of the fact that if anyone were to catch a fox like his

daughter, they would soon be led to the ‘slaughter’.

Once he has fled to his ‘[b]eloved Regan’, Lear reflects upon the love

and generosity that he has shown his daughters and upon the unnatural
ingratitude paid to him by Goneril in return. The image that he uses to describe
his sense of shock and outraged paternal affection appears in the form of

‘sharp-toothed unkindness’, which like a ‘vulture’, tears at his heart. In his

rising anger at Regan's rejection of his grievances, and her demand that he ask
Goneril's forgiveness and return instead to her, Lear reacts by claiming that a
serpent's tongue has struck him to his heart. Imagery linked to the wounding of
the King’s heart by vultures and serpents marks a crisis in the rising action of
the play. As the animal imagery gathers in intensity it is as if we are being
prepared for the storm that is about to break. Lear reacts to Regan's rejection
of him, by refusing her demand to dismiss fifty of his knights and by his

determination, instead, to ‘abjure all roofs and be a comrade with the wolf and

the owl’.

THE STORM

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 97

When Lear insists that he would rather be out in the storm, his wish is granted
with callous zeal and the doors to Gloucester’s castle are shut. Shakespeare
takes the greatest of care to prepare us for the storm scene in the Third Act. At
the conclusion of the Second Act there are several references to its approach:

Cornwall: Let us withdraw; 'twill be a storm. (290)

Gloucester: Alack, the night comes on, and the

bleak winds Do sorely ruffle. For many miles about

There's scarce a bush. (303-305)

Regan: Shut up your doors. (307)

Cornwall: Shut up your doors, my lord; 'tis a wild night.

My Regan counsels well: Come out o' th' storm.(311-312)

In scene i of Act III the clouds continue to gather:

Kent - Who's there, besides foul weather?

Gentleman - One minded like the weather, most unquietly.

This descriptive speech given by the Gentleman is extremely important to the

great storm speech of the following scene. It suggests in advance the wildness
of the night and anticipates the imagery that will dominate the storm scene.
According to him, the stormy night into which Lear has emerged from the

previous rejection scene is one from which the ‘cub-drawn bear’, ‘the lion’, and

the ‘belly-pinched wolf’ would flee. Contending with the ‘fretful elements’,

tearing his hair and striving to ‘out-scorn the conflicting wind and rain’ Lear is

pursued by his ‘heart-struck injuries’. The wolf, a symbol of greed, and the owl,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 98

of malevolence, are the evil companions the king expects to meet on the heath.
The truth is that even the most irrational animals have left the barren heath to

seek protection, while the king, ‘unbonneted’, and abandoned by every

creature, stands alone against unbridled nature, human nature, and, as he

discovers, cosmic nature, attended only by the needling wisdom of the Fool.
Battling with the elements, Lear pits himself against the storm. He echoes it, he
defies it and, in the process, he becomes the very image of it. He creates it
dramatically; but not by detached description, which would merely let us see it
through his eyes. He is, in fact, endued with the very spirit of the storm. During
this crucial moment in the play’s development, Lear is completely at one with
the raging tempest. This dramatic presentation of the storm is identified and
equated with the storm that rages in Lear’s mind.

Later in the scene, the fool employs the imagery of the ‘louse’, a small,

wingless, blood-sucking insect, to provide us with a concrete example of the

contrast between Lear's powerless state and the fury of his attempts to arraign

the elements. Lear sees the storm as having conspired with his ‘pernicious

daughters’ to join their battle against so old and white a head as his. The

imagery of the louse offers us a closer understanding of Lear's powerlessness,

the louse being on a lower level than any of the animals with whom his
daughters are associated.

IMAGES OF DEHUMANISATION

The notion of descent to a lower state of being is emphasised by the arrival of

Edgar. When Lear meets Edgar disguised as Poor Tom he is certain that

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 99

nothing could have subdued nature to such a lowly state but his ‘unkind

daughters’. Expressive of this, and linking Edgar's state with Lear’s madness

on the stormy heath, are the images employed by Edgar himself:

[. . .] hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness,

dog in madness, lion in prey (III. iv. 96-98)

When he recognises in Edgar the natural state of mankind the process of Lear’s
descent into a basic state is complete:

Ha! here's three on's us are sophisticated! Thou are

the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but

such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off,

you lendings! (III. iv. 110-14)

Bereft of reason, mad, tearing at his clothes, Lear is now little better than a
beast. He has reached a state of dehumanisation which, for the past two acts,
the play’s imagery has prefigured.

IMAGERY & LEAR’S MADNESS

When Lear appears at Dover mad, ‘fantastically dressed with wild flowers’,

some of the imagery he uses (drawn from an array of human and animal

images) corresponds to his state of mind: ‘crowkeeper’, ‘mouse’, ‘bird’,

‘gilded butterflies’; this is the innocent, naive imagery of childhood or senility,

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 100

a harmless, neutral, non-evocative imagery which suits Lear’s new state of
mind. Animal imagery is also used to describe Lear’s newfound sense of
wisdom:

They flattered me like a dog (IV. iv. 98).

Integral to this newly gained insight is a critical bitterness that acknowledges

the corruption of the world. The ‘wren’ and the ‘gilded fly’, ‘the fitchew’ and the
‘soiled horse’ become images of copulation and adultery. Reasoned cynicism
has replaced the violated and outraged affection which throughout the play had
so obsessed him. However, Lear’s journey to reason and, therefore, to
humanity is cut short somewhat by the tragic the death of Cordelia. Lear's
reaction against the injustice of Cordelia's death and the needless waste of
goodness in the world is expressed in once again in animal imagery:

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all?
(V. iii. 306-07)

The Function Of The Sub-Plot

The sub-plot concerning Gloucester and his two sons is not a mere duplication
of Lear's story. Shakespeare did not need to repeat himself. The Lear story is intense

and universal in itself and the similarities between the two stories ought not to
distract from the differences.
The sub-plot is complementary to the main plot. It involves physical as
opposed to mental suffering. Thus we view the body and soul of man and

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 101

come face to face with mankind in general. In this way, the sub-plot not only

complements, but universalises the main theme so that we watch both the ordinary

man and the extraordinary man; the passive victim and the active participators.

All the Lear effects are exaggerated in the Gloucester theme. The Gloucester

theme has a beginning, even more fantastic than the Lear theme. Edmund's plot

is more devilish and intentional than Goneril and Regan's icy callousness, Edmund is a

more attractive and wittier villain.

The sub-plot involves an exaggeration in villainy and humour, but even more so
in horror. The gouging out of Gloucester's eyes is the most horrific, brutal
scene in the play. Gloucester's mock suicide merges the ridiculous and the

grotesque to increase our vision of horror.

The themes run separately but parallel. Our imaginations are aroused by the grotesque

in the Gloucester plot and prepare us to sympathise with Lear. The Gloucester plot

focuses our vision to understand Lear's mental torment, revulsion from

mankind and wild ravings. By viewing Mad Tom and Gloucester, we are not
inclined to laugh at Lear.
Gloucester's story exhibits the world's power to hur t - it demonstrates the brutal

actuality of what people can do and suffer.

The sub-plot is a device of intensification which gives us our bearings. It helps us to

understand and feel the enduring agony of Lear. The horrors of physical torment are

paralleled by the subtle mental torment; the mock suicide flows as a tributary
to the main-stream of our sympathy towards Lear.
Having witnessed Old Gloucester falling from his kneeling posture, a few inches

flat, face foremost instead of from the dizzy heights of the cliffs of Dover, we are

ready to witness the fantastically horrible, which is the agony of Lear's mind.

Lear utters wild and whirling words of madness. Sometimes his words hold profound

meaning. Often they are purely ridiculous. It is certainly just as well that we have

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 102

been prepared for this grotesque scene. Laughter is forbidden us.
Shakespeare's consummate art has forged the plot and sub-plot in such a way
that we watch with tears rather than laughter, the cruelly comic actions of Lear:

"Look, look a mouse! Peace, peace; This piece of toasted cheese will do 1".

Other Similarities
There are other correspondences in the play besides that between Lear and
Gloucester.
Lear has all daughters, Gloucester has sons. Shakespeare is concerned not
only with the rivalries between fathers and their children, but also with the

rivalries between siblings. By making Edmund a bastard, he is able to contrast an

illegitimate with a legitimate son.

The king who is foolish is confronted again and again by the Fool who is wise,
there is a father who goes mad and a son who only pretends to go mad. They
too are brought face to face. At times they vaguely resemble each other: Lear
bedraggled by the storm or bedecked with weeds reminds us Edgar disguised
as Tom.
Moreover there are two men in disguise: Kent and Edgar. The hypocrites in the
play, Goneril, Regan and Edmund disguise their loyalties, but Kent and Edgar
disguise themselves in order to remain loyal.
Correspondences like these are characteristic of Shakespeare's plots. He
repeats situations and relationships in the same way that he repeats
metaphors.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 103

King Lear Past Leaving Cert Questions

2 01 0
I. “In K ing Le ar honour and loyalty tr iumph over br utality and
viciousness.”

Wr ite your response to this statement suppor ting your answer

w ith suitable refer ence to th e t e xt.

OR

II. “In K ing Le ar the villainous char acter s hold more fascination for
the audience than the vir tuous ones.”

D i s c u s s t h i s s t a t e m e n t w i t h r e fe r e n c e t o a t l e a s t o n e v i l l a i n o u s
and one vir tuous char acter. Suppor t your answer with suitable

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 104

2 00 6

I. “In the play, Ki ng Lear, th e stor ies of L ear an d G lou cester mir ror
one another in i nt eres t ing way s.”

Wr ite a response to this view of the play, suppor ting your

answer by reference to the text.

OR

II. “Re ading or s eei ng K i ng L ear i s a h o r r i f y i n g a s we l l a s a n

u p l i f t i n g e x p e r i e n c e .”

Wr ite a response to this view, suppor ting the points you make
by referen ce to th e text.

2 00 1

I. What, in your view, are the most impor tant changes that take
place in the char acter of Lear dur ing the play, Ki n g L e a r?

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 105

 OR

II. “Scene s of g r eat s uffer i n g a nd of gre a t t e n d e r ne s s he l p t o m a ke

Kin g Lea r a ver y memor able play.”
D i s c u s s t h i s s t a t e m e n t , s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by r e fe r e n c e t o
the play, King Lear.

1 99 7

I. “Our initial d isa p prov al o f L e ar i n S h a ke s p e a r e ’s K i n g Le a r

develops ultimately into a profound sympathy for him.”

D i s c u s s t h i s s t a t e m e n t , s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by q u o t a t i o n
f r o m o r r e fe r e n c e t o t h e p l ay.

OR

II. “ The te nd e nc y t o take pl e asu r e in t or t ur e , in d e ce i t a nd i n t h e

abuse of power is vividly dr amatised in the play Ki n g Le a r.”

D i s c u s s t h i s s t a t e m e n t , s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by q u o t a t i o n
f r o m o r r e fe r e n c e t o t h e p l ay.

1 99 3

I. “The impo r tan ce of s elf - know led g e and for g i ve ne s s i s s t r ik i ng ly

e v id e nt in t he p lay King L e ar.”

D i s c u s s t h i s v i e w, s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by r e fe r e n c e o r
quotation from the play.
ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 106
 OR
II. “E vil is vivid ly a nd fr ig hte n ing ly d epi c ted in t h e p l ay K i n g L e a r.”

D i s c u s s t h i s v i e w, s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by r e fe r e n c e o r
quotation from the play.

1 98 9

I. “Shake spe are ’s v isi on o f the wor ld i n Ki n g L e a r is not essentially

p e s s i m i s t i c .” D i s c u s s t h i s v i e w, s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by
r e fe ren ce or quota tion f rom th e p l ay.

Or

II.
“In the cou r s e o f the p lay L ea r e mb ar k s on a ha r r ow ing jour n e y
through suffer ing to self knowledge . At the end he is a better
and wiser man.” Discuss this view, suppor ting your answer by
re fer ence or q uo tat io n f ro m t he p lay.

1 98 5

I. ‘Love as a redemptive force is a major theme in Ki n g L e a r’

D i s c u s s t h i s v i e w, s u p p o r t i n g yo u r a n s we r by r e fe r e n c e o r
quotation from the play.

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 107

 Or
II. ‘Images of animals, of the tor tured human body, and of clothing/
n a ke d n e s s , a r e c o m m o n i n K in g Le ar.’ D iscu ss th e par t played by
s u c h i m a g e r y i n t h e p l a y, s u p p o r t i n g y o u r a n s w e r w i t h
appropr iate quotation or reference .

ⓒ Cian Hogan English Notes 2025 108