Pride, which She Calls Plainness by Cordelia - Book Report/Review Example

Pride, which She Calls Plainness by Cordelia 1. Lear accuses Cordelia of “pride, which she calls plainness” (129). Might he be right? Is there anything to criticize in Cordelia’s behavior here? 
 Like Cordelia’s comments about husband and father, there are definitely two ways to interpret this. From Lear’s point of view, he is both her father and her sovereign, and therefore entitled to a degree of respect above and beyond the usual. In this perspective, it is only proper that his subjects should lie to please him. His accusation is that Cordelia is stubbornly refusing to be a sycophant like her sisters because she is proud. On the other hand, in her mind, Cordelia is being simply true to her feelings. Throughout the play, she is excruciatingly so—it is this quality that causes her to return home help her father and find her own demise when she could have stayed safely with her husband in France—and therefore, we cannot consider it pride from her point of view. Plainness, to Cordelia, is honesty, and she is simply incapable, according to the play, of deceit. Further, since it never occurs to Cordelia that her father might be senile, she doesn’t see any necessity for coddling him. She treats her father exactly as she would like to be treated. She is not proud. She is simply a woman who can only move in reality, whereas Lear is beginning to live in his fantasy, which includes this unconditional and overwhelming love he craves. 2. Would you have Lear behave like an old man in this scene? Would you want him to seem unfit to rule any longer? Or would you want to suggest that he is making a mistake in giving up power at all? 
 I would definitely suggest that Lear’s mistake is in giving up his power, but not simply because he wants to retire—people do get tired after all—but because he is not planning on behaving like an old man. He wants to retire from the burdens of being king while retaining all the perks. He wants to live with his hundred favorite knights and one jester, spend his days hunting where he pleases and his nights eating and drinking what he pleases, and he wants to be accorded the same respect in this juvenile debauchery as he was in the height of his power. I think that Lear is unfit to rule simply because he chooses to abdicate. Perhaps if he did act more like an old man, instead of continuing to command like a leader, Cordelia would have a better idea of how to respond to him, but I think, from a tragic standpoint, Lear makes his only mistake in the beginning of the play: believing that he can have his cake and eat it too, thinking that it is possible to give up the onerous part of being king while retaining the fun parts. 3. Choose one passage (2-10 lines) from King Lear, Acts I - II, that you like or find interesting, and try to explain what you like or find interesting about the language of the passage. Try identify at least two poetic devices used in the passage that contribute to its meaning or effect. You might, for example, look at its use of imagery, figurative language (e.g., metaphors, similes, personification, etc.), rhyme, alliteration or assonance, rhythm, etc. Cite act, scene, and line numbers so others can look at the passage too. 
 Act I, scene i, lines 105-110 “Why have my sisters husbands, if they say They love you all? Happily, when I wed, that lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry Half my love with him, half my care and duty. Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.” I love that Cordelia is always blunt, but this does not make her ineloquent. One literary device I see in this passage is her use of irony in saying “Sure I shall never marry like my sisters, To love my father all.” This is such a pointed barb, in which she is saying that Goneril and Regan are either liars, idiots, or somewhat incestuous in their thinking. Of course, the first line is an example of rhetoric questioning. In the second sentence, she employs metaphorical language to describe marriage. Her husband becomes “that lord whose hand must take my plight,” and she further gives tangibility to the abstract concepts of love, care and duty by suggesting that he will carry these things. The “hand” is the bond between man and wife. 4. Comment on Lear's speech at II, iv, 264-86 ("O, reason not the need!"). What is his answer to Regan's question at line 263? Does he have a point? How do you respond to the second half of the speech, in which he asks the gods for patience and revenge? 
 Regan questions why Lear, who is no longer King, needs any followers whatsoever, suggesting he should go quietly alone into his dotage. Lear responds that friends are not a need like food or water, but rather the sort of thing that sets a man’s life apart from an animal’s. He compares his desire for followers to his daughter’s desire for pretty clothes; they would be just as warm—warmer—in ugly clothes, but they don’t want ugly clothes, and wouldn’t be happy with them. He questions the meaning of the word “need,” suggesting that men have strong emotional desires for things that don’t contribute to their survival, but rather give their life context, meaning, and joy. Of course, we know this is an excellent point, and psychological research today tells us that companionship is one of the most important factors in health, particular for the elderly. When he asks for patience and revenge, he is on two different tracks. Patience he does need sorely. Although his lifestyle is trying to his daughters, their treatment of him is disrespectful and certainly inappropriate. He wants to patience to deal with them, but then, because his mind is slipping, he wonders if he does have cause to seek revenge. At the same time, at this point in the play they have not actively betrayed him, although they have done so in their hearts. I believe that Lear, like some mentally ill people, has become a little paranoid, and that is why he speaks as he does. On the other hand, it might be a case of, “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not out to get you,” although it’s possible that his behavior only makes theirs worse. 5. What emotional or symbolic effect does the raging storm create in this scene? Does it seem to work as a physical symbol of Lear’s emotional state? Does it suggest the indifference of nature and the gods to his plight? What other effects or meanings does the storm have or suggest? I think the storm is symbolic of Lear’s state of mind, because Lear is still technically the King, and a king and his land can be considered the same thing in Shakespeare’s parlance. Lear’s first line in Act III, scene ii, when he says, “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!” demonstrates that the weather matches his mood perfectly. He would even make the storm worse, if he could, to show his power and anger. It also symbolizes that fact that although he is old, he is not dead, nor weak. He still has the strength to rage himself through the worst weather. The weather doesn’t bother him as much as his children’s behavior: he doesn’t think the weather owes him what Regan and Goneril do, and he doesn’t hate it the way he hates them, although it symbolically treats him similarly. I think in the language of the play, the storm shows that nature and the gods are actually on his side, sympathizing with his feelings by matching them. As a man, he cannot express himself with as much force as the storm expresses his feelings for him. Read More