Comparison of Tuesdays with Morrie and King Lear - Essay Example

?Jerry Ciacho April 15, Achieving Wisdom: “Tuesdays with Morrie” and “King Lear” Two works of literature, Tuesdays with Morrie, written by MitchAlbom, and William Shakespeare’s play entitled King Lear, both present two opposite characters that acquire and obtain wisdom, insight and knowledge about the world and the reality of life, but the way these characters acquire them is poles apart. In King Lear, the king gains wisdom and understanding from foolishness and idiocy through madness and misfortune. In the first part of the play, because of his old age, he decides to retire from power and divide his kingdom among his daughters according to the amount of their public recognition of his love, saying, “Which of you shall we say (emphasized) doth love us most?” (1.1.51) instead of saying, “Which of you shall doth loves us most?” shows his first act of foolishness, giving more importance to showing off and displaying yourself in public rather than real love. On the other hand, Morrie Schwartz in Tuesdays with Morrie believes otherwise, saying, in page 127, “If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone." With this, it already clearly shows the opposing values and beliefs of the two main characters. While the two daughters cleverly flatter their father to acquire more land in King Lear, Cordelia, in contrast remains honest and refuses to participate in the test of public display of love. Out of rage, Lear disowns Cordelia, saying, “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, forever.” (1.1.113-116) On the contrary, in Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie, who is a retired professor dying from Lou Gehrig’s disease or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), does not get carried away with his emotions and feelings. Even when he is in great pain, knowing he has a few more months to live, does not give in to the rage and great pain that he must be feeling, but instead, makes the best out of what he has left. In the 10th page of the book, he says, “Do I wither up and disappear, or do I make the best of my time left?” In King Lear, after the king’s sudden decisions about the division of the land and the banishment of Cordelia, Kent pleads with the king, telling him that he has gone mad in impulsively making those verdicts. Lear remains stubborn, and becomes angry again, saying, “Come not between the dragon and his wrath.” (1.1.128) and in line 166 shouts, “Out of my sight!”, banishing Kent. In Tuesdays with Morrie, however, Morrie, handles his emotions differently. On page 21, he explains, “There are some mornings when I cry and cry and mourn for myself. Some mornings, I’m so angry and bitter. But it doesn’t last too long. Then I get up and say, ‘I want to live . . .’” Later on, in King Lear, after the king banishes Cordelia and Kent, he, once again, becomes angry and through his impetuous anger, curses Goneril, the first daughter. Appealing to Regan, the second daughter, he is rejected by her. Through troubles and rejection made by his early hasty decisions, he finally gains wisdom and realizes the real characters of Goneril and Regan, and in vain, curses and cries out in grief, “I have full cause of weeping; but this heart/Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,/Or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!” (2.4.311-313) However, in Tuesdays with Morrie, although Morrie also gains more wisdom and understanding about life when he experienced pain and unhappiness in his past, this was not caused by his thoughtless decisions and giving into his emotions. When he learned about his fatal sickness, instead of screaming and crying out loud, instead on page 10, Albom writes, “Instead, he would make death his final project, the center point of his days. Since everyone was going to die, he could be of great value, right? He could be research. A human textbook. Study me in my slow and patient demise. Watch what happens to me. Learn with me.” In Act Three of King Lear, after Kent and Gloucester leads the king into a farmhouse shelter with Edgar and the Fool, he starts to show madness and insanity. He holds a mock trial in order to penalize and punish his two daughters, Goneril and Regan. He speaks to two stools as if they were them. He also appoints Edgar as the judge and the Fool as a member of the jury. Later that night, he also thinks he is back in his ruling years, and instructs that the curtains should be drawn and that supper must be ready in the morning, saying, “Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains:/so, so, so. We'll go to supper i' he morning. So, so, so.” (3.6.82-83) With this, it is clear that Lear has finally let his emotions get the better of him and became mad. This is not how Morrie handles his problem and the pain that he is going through. He made use of what he still had left inside of him and that was wisdom. He used his sickness to help others by teaching them the little important things that he knew. He taught Morrie about love, life, marriage and death, and gave him lessons such as in page 174, “As long as we can love each other, and remember the feeling of love we had, we can die without ever really going away. All the love you have created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on-in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here." He continues by saying, "Death ends a life, not a relationship." At the very end of the play in King Lear, Lear has finally gained wisdom concerning the real characters of each of her daughters, regretting what he had done to Cordelia in the beginning. When Cordelia is hanged, Lear begins to cry out in anguish and sorrow for the death of the only daughter that truly loved him. He cries out in pain, yet still has hope that there might still be life inside of her saying: And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you, undo this button. Thank you sir. Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips, Look there, look there!" (5.3.303-309) After saying this, he too dies, helpless, unable to take any more pain. In retrospect, Lear was able to acquire wisdom through the wrong decisions he has made and through suffering the consequences that was brought by those rash and injudicious judgments and decisions caused by reckless anger and pride. Quite the opposite, Morrie in Tuesdays with Morrie gained his wisdom by careful observation about everything that surrounded him. He gained his wisdom through reflections and through thinking about the lives around him. He lived every moment of his life to the fullest and instead of complaining about his illness, he, instead embraced it, saying on page 18, “Accept what you are able to do and you are not able to do. “Accept the past as past, without denying it or discarding it. " He also demonstrates how he refuses to feel sorry for himself. On page 57, he explains this by saying, “I don’t allow myself any more self-pity than that. A little each morning, a few tears, and that’s all . . . . It’s horrible to watch my body slowly wilt away to nothing. But it’s also wonderful because of all the time I get to say goodbye.” Works Cited Shakespeare, William, et al. King Lear (Folger Shakespeare Library). New York, NY: Simon & Schuster, 2009. Print. Albom, Mitch. Tuesdays with Morrie. Detroit, Michigan: Doubleday, 1997. Print. Read More