Topic: King Lear Discussion Question
DISCUSSION QUESTION 1: As you read keep a list of characters and lines where they
express their world view:
a. Which characters take the first position (belief in gods or fate that rewards good)?
Answer a. The characters who take the first position are King Lear, King of France, Earl of
Gloucester, Duke of Albany, Earl of Kent, Cordelia
LEAR:
Let it be so. Thy truth then be thy dower.
For by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be—
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity, and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever. The barbarous Scythian,
Or he that makes his generation messes
To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom
Be as well neighbored, pitied, and relieved
As thou my sometime daughter1. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 5, lines 109-122)
FRANCE
Fairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,
Most choice forsaken, and most loved despised!
Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon,
Be it lawful I take up what’s cast away.
Gods, gods! 'Tis strange that from their cold’st neglect
My love should kindle to inflamed respect.—
Thy dowerless daughter, King, thrown to my chance,
Is queen of us, of ours, and our fair France2. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 11, lines 259-269)
GLOUCESTER
These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us. Though the wisdom of nature
can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects3.
(Act 1, Scene 2, Page 4, lines 106-109)
GLOUCESTER
Here, take this purse, thou whom the heavens' plagues
Have humbled to all strokes. That I am wretched
Makes thee the happier. Heavens, deal so still.
Let the superfluous and lust-dieted man,
1
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
2
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
3
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
1
That slaves your ordinance, that will not see
Because he doth not feel, feel your power quickly.
So distribution should undo excess,
And each man have enough4. (Act 4, Scene 1, Page 4, lines 74-81)
ALBANY
This shows you are above,
You justicers, that these our nether crimes
So speedily can venge! But oh, poor Gloucester5. (Act 4, Scene 2, Page 4, lines 88-90)
KENT
It is the stars,
The stars above us, govern our conditions.
Else one self mate and mate could not beget
Such different issues. You spoke not with her since6? (Act 4, Scene 3, Page 2, lines 36-39)
GLOUCESTER
O you mighty gods, (kneels)
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 opposeless wills,
My snuff and loathèd part of nature should
Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him! (Act 4, Scene 6, Page 2, lines 42-48)
EDGAR
As I stood here below, methought his eyes
Were two full moons. He had a thousand noses,
Horns whelked and waved like the enragèd sea.
It was some fiend. Therefore, thou happy father,
Think that the clearest gods, who make them honors
Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee7. (Act 4, Scene 6, Page 4, lines 82-87)
CORDELIA
O you kind gods,
Cure this great breach in his abusèd nature,
Th' untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up,
Of this child-changèd father!8 (Act 4, Scene 7, lines 17-20)
EDGAR
Let’s exchange charity.
4
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
5
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
6
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
7
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
8
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
2
I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund.
If more, the more thou’st wronged me.
My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son.
The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices
Make instruments to plague us.
The dark and vicious place where thee he got
Cost him his eyes9. (Act 5, Scene 3, Page 9, lines 196-203)
b. Which characters take the second position (skepticism)?
The characters who took the second position of scepticism were: Edmund and Edgar,
illegitimate and legitimate sons to Gloucester respectively.
EDMUND
This is the excellent foppery of the world that when we are sick in fortune—often the surfeit
of our own behavior—we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and the stars, as if
we were villains by necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves, and treachers
by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars, and adulterers by an enforced obedience of
planetary influence, and all that we are evil in by a divine thrusting-on. An admirable evasion
of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition to the charge of a star! My father
compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major,
so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. Fut, I should have been that I am, had the
maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing. Edgar10.
(Act 1, Scene 2, Page 5, lines 123-140)
EDGAR
Do you busy yourself about that11? (Act 1, Scene 2, Page 6, lines 149)
c. Does what happens to each character support their beliefs about the way the world is or
challenge those beliefs? For example, are their prayers answered?
d. At the end of the play do any of the characters still believe in the existence of benign
deities who care about what happens to human beings? Cite scenes/lines to support your
position.
9
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
10
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
11
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
3
DISCUSSION QUESTION 2: Choose EITHER Lear or Gloucester and answer the following
questions:
a. How do Lear or Gloucester understand themselves at the beginning of the play? That is,
how do they view themselves, positively or negatively and why?
Answer a. At the beginning of the play both Lear and Gloucester view themselves as
negatively. Gloucester views himself negatively as he has a bastard son, Edmund and that son
is a product of his own sins. Lear finds himself to be unlucky as he thinks his youngest
daughter Cordelia is not worthy of being called as his daughter. For him she was the least
liked person and he wished if she were not born as her daughter. This makes his life bitter
and sad for him and he views his life in a negative way. This is clearly reflected by the
following lines of Lear in Act, Scene 1:-
LEAR
Go to, go to. Better thou
Hadst not been born than not t' have pleased me better12.
(Act 1, Scene 1, Page 10, lines 252-253)
b. How do the characters around them view them? For example, how do Goneril and Reagan
view their father? How does Cordelia view him? How do Edmund and Edgar view their
father?
Ans b. Goneril and Reagan view their fathers as if he was on old sycophant fool. After they
had inherited their father’s wealth, they started thinking of him as a small child who needs to
be scolded and rebuked to be kept in check, just like a small child is done with. Cordelia on
the other hand had no bitter or ill-feelings towards her father even though he had failed to
measure the sincerity of Cordelia’s reply. Edmund views his father as a person as his enemy
as the latter was cause for his bastard status. While on the other hand, the rightful son Edgar
had no such ill feelings towards his father and he helps his father when the latter is blinded
and left to die as a blinded man. These can be felt from the expressions of the characters itself
as mentioned below:-
CORDELIA
(to LEAR) I yet beseech your majesty,
If for I want that glib and oily art
To speak and purpose not—since what I well intend,
I’ll do ’t before I speak—that you make known
It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,
No unchaste action or dishonored step
That hath deprived me of your grace and favor,
But even for want of that for which I am richer:
A still-soliciting eye and such a tongue
As I am glad I have not, though not to have it
Hath lost me in your liking13. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 10, lines 241-251)
12
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
13
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
4
CORDELIA
The jewels of our father, with washed eyes
Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,
And like a sister am most loath to call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our father.
To your professèd bosoms I commit him.
But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,
I would prefer him to a better place.
So farewell to you both14. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 12, lines 289-296)
GONERIL
You see how full of changes his age is. The observation we have made of it hath not been
little. He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgment he hath now cast her off
appears too grossly15. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 12, lines 310-314)
REGAN
'Tis the infirmity of his age. Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself16.
(Act 1, Scene 1, Page 12, lines 315-316)
GONERIL
The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash. Then must we look from his age to
receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition, but therewithal the unruly
waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them17.
(Act 1, Scene 1, Page 12, lines 317-321)
GONERIL
We must do something, and i' th' heat18. (Act 1, Scene 1, Page 12, lines 330)
EDMUND
A credulous father, and a brother noble—
Whose nature is so far from doing harms
That he suspects none, on whose foolish honesty
My practices ride easy. I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit.
All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit. (Act 1, Scene 2, Page 7, lines 186-191)
14
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
15
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
16
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
17
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
18
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
5
GONERIL
Put on what weary negligence you please,
You and your fellow servants. I’ll have it come to question.
If he distaste it, let him to our sister,
Whose mind and mine I know in that are one,
Not to be overruled. Idle old man
That still would manage those authorities
That he hath given away! Now by my life,
Old fools are babes again and must be used
With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused.
Remember what I have said19. (Act 1, Scene 3, lines 12-20)
c. Do you think Lear and Gloucester have learned anything at the end of the play? Can we
"moralize" Lear's and Gloucester's experience --that is, is there any lesson to be learned from
their suffering/ experience? Why or why not? Cite scenes/lines to support your position.
Answer c. Yes both Gloucester and Lear had learnt of their follies that they committed in
their past and at the end of the play they can be seen musing and lamenting on the losses they
have suffered – physically, mentally, psychologically, emotionally and also the loss of their
near and dear ones, especially those who loved them truly. This is reflected by the following
quotes spoken by Gloucester and Lear in the last two Acts, especially in Act 4:-
GLOUCESTER
I have no way, and therefore want no eyes. I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen,
Our means secure us and our mere defects
Prove our commodities. O dear son Edgar,
The food of thy abusèd father’s wrath,
Might I but live to see thee in my touch,
I’d say I had eyes again20. (Act 4, Scene 1, lines 19-25)
LEAR
Ha! Goneril with a white beard? Ha, Regan? They flattered me like a dog and told me I had
white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say “Ay” and “No” to everything
that I said “Ay” and “No” to was no good divinity. 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. Go to, they are not men o' their words. They told me I was
everything. 'Tis a lie, I am not ague-proof21. (Act 4, Scene 6, Page 5, lines 110-119)
LEAR
Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me, for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause; they have not22. (Act 4, Scene 7, Page 4, lines 81-85)
19
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
20
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
21
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
6
Bibliography
Book:
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York:
Washington Square Press.
Web:
Shakespeare-online.com,. (2015). The Tragedy of King Lear: Plot Summary. Retrieved 11
May 2015, from http://www.shakespeare-online.com/plays/kinglear/kinglearps.html
22
Shakespeare, W., Mowat, B., & Werstine, P. (2005). The tragedy of King Lear. New York: Washington
Square Press.
7
Gradesaver.com,. (2015). King Lear Characters. Retrieved 11 May 2015, from
http://www.gradesaver.com/king-lear/study-guide/character-list
Cliffsnotes.com,. (2015). Character List. Retrieved 11 May 2015, from
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/k/king-lear/character-list
