King Lear by W. Shakespeare and A Brave New World by A. Huxley - Essay Example

Irony, or what happens when something is said, or done, and what happens is the opposite of what was supposed to happen is found in King Lear, by Shakespeare, and A Brave New World by Albert Huxley, in more than one place, and in more than one form. In King Lear, a King that does not wish to be King any more splits his kingdom between his three daughters and then attempts to retire. Unfortunately, in splitting his kingdom, he has made a big mistake, and must accept the penalty that comes with it. Joining the Lear family is the Earl of Gloucester, with his two sons, Edgar and Edmund, one who is the legal heir to the house, and the other that wants it because he thinks he should have it. In A Brave New World, society is no longer brave, or new, or true to each other. Instead it has been replaced with a system that, from top to bottom, ensures only the good of what is known as the world-state, but not any one person in it. Throughout both of these stories, there is what is known as spoken irony, or a character saying something opposite of what was meant as they were saying it. There is also irony in different situations, when what actually happens is the opposite or different from what someone set out to do. Finally, there is also dramatic irony, when the characters end up doing something that may come back to haunt them. Irony happens right away in the first scenes of King Lear in the form of dramatic irony, when Lear commits a rather large error that will cost him dearly. King Lear decides that the time has come to divide his kingdom. He asks for his three daughters, and asks them to tell him how much they love him. Two daughters tell him long speeches. His third daughter Cordelia does not. When he father tells her to speak, she says "Unhappy that I am/ I cannot heave my heart into my mouth/I love your majesty according to my bond;/ nor more nor less." (I.i. 93-95).  King Lear, angry, disowns her, because she did not give him the words that he wanted to hear. The truth was that Cordelia loved her father so much that she would rather not just say the words, but show him with her actions. This is an example of dramatic irony, because everyone reading the scene knows that the king is making a mistake. The daughter that he disowns is the one that loves him, unlike her sisters that just tell him that they love him to make him (and themselves) happy. Though the words of the other two daughters could be used as verbal, or spoken, irony in this case, it is the interaction between Cordelia and Lear that puts the biggest irony on the scene. Dramatic irony happens again right after this when Edmund, the bastard son of Gloucester, schemes to have what he feels he deserves. He says, “Wherefore should I stand in the plague of custom/and permit the curiosity of nations to deprive me/for that I am some twelve or fourteen moon-shines lag of a brother?” (I.ii. 2-6). Edmund plans to take what he wants, even though he is not the rightful heir, and now everyone reading knows this, but everyone else around him in the play has not been informed. Another example of dramatic irony happens in A Brave New World. Linda, the mother of the savage, tells Bernard and Lenina that her son had a father named “Tomakin” (Huxley 182). Huxley even tells the readers that “Yes, Thomas was the D.H.C.’s first name” (Huxley 182). The readers know, then, that the Director actually fathered a child. He had been seen almost from page one telling students and new workers to the central hatchery “for you must remember, in those days of gross viviparous production, children were always brought up by their parents and not in state conditioning centers” (Huxley 38). It is ironic that the Direct of the Central Hatcheries actually had sex with emotional involvement and fathered a child when he claims that the whole process is “gross” and a thing of the past. Situational irony, or a situation in which the opposite effect happens than intended, occurs so many times in both of these stories that examples must be chosen, and not listed. In King Lear, just after being banished, Cordelia gets a proposal of marriage from the King of France, who says “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.” (I.i. 253-255). The King of France has his own palace and the people of France and is in a better position than the Cornwall or Albany, who marry Regan and Goneril. Cordeila got the better end of the bargain, even though her father threw her out with nothing. In A Brave New World, there is more situational irony. First, even though science and scientific research has brought the society to the point they are now at, science is banned. Mustapha tells John, “every discovery in pure science is potentially subversive; even science must sometimes be treated an enemy” (Huxley 356). If the society had not had science, they would not have been able to start genetically producing babies. In addition, sex, an act that could cause babies to be born, is regarded as a “game” (Huxley 48). Children are encouraged to play this “game” (Huxley 48). It is almost terrible to see the irony in it, because even children as young as seven are considered “charming” when playing it (Huxley 48). Characters in this story are also examples of situational irony, including Linda. She tells John about the world that she lived in before, and wants to go back, but once she is back, she spends all of her time taking the drug soma (Huxley 239). The doctors give her as much as she wants, even though they know it will kill her, because they only want her out of the way (Huxley 240). In the end, the only thing Linda has seen of the world that she wanted to return to so badly was a bed, where she could take her soma-trips in peace. Also in A Brave New World is Bernard, who finds his world “very unsatisfactory” (Huxley 244). He also tries to be his own person, in a world that has made everyone the same. He does this mostly by showing emotions, such as when he cries in front of his friend Helmholtz (Huxley 108). But in the end, when he is sent away to live with people that think like he does on an “island”, he does not want to go (Huxley 358). These characters and situations, in both stories, are ironic because they are not doing what is expected of them, or the results that have happened are different than expected. Finally, there is verbal irony, or irony with the spoken word, when characters speak words that have an opposite meaning or purpose to what they were meant to say. A good example of this begins right away, in the title of A Brave New World. It implies that the world is full of people who are willing to take on challenges and see them through. Nothing could be further from the truth. The world is filled with people who are conditioned not to feel anything. They are conditioned not to love beauty and flowers as toddlers (Huxley 31-32). They see death as common (Huxley 256). When Lenina finds out that she has no soma with her on the reservation, she begins to hide her face in her hands and shake (Huxley 180). This is not what a reader would expect when thinking about a world that is brave. In King Lear, the title is not ironic, but the first few scenes are, introducing ironies that continue through the whole play. First, the daughters Reagan and Goneril, the two that say that they love their father above anything else, are soon trying to get rid of him. By Act I, Scene III, Goneril is saying that she is tired of King Lear being in her house. She says, “By day and night he wrongs me/every hour he flashes into one gross crime or other/ that sets us all at odds:/ I’ll not endure it” (I.iii. 3-6).Two scenes before, she made a long speech about how she loved him, when her speech was only out of desire to get her hands on his land. Though the title of King Lear is not ironic, a good many characters in it, including Regan and Goneril, are almost gleeful when using verbal irony. Irony is in both King Lear and A Brave New World in different ways. There are so many twists and turns to the speeches and situations that it is almost hard to keep up with. Irony makes for good plot, in all forms, from dramatic to verbal and situational. King Lear, Edmund, and the Director are brought into mention with dramatic irony, while situations throughout both stories have ironic results and meanings. The spoken word throughout both also conveys irony from character to character, and even situation to situation. It is through irony that most of the people in both stories are not only built up, but also brought down, and what keeps a reader going until the end, to find out what will happen to them. Works Cited Harbage, Alfred. Ed. Three Tragedies: William Shakespeare Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear. New York, NY: Scholastic, Inc., 1956. 250-383. Print. Huxley, Aldous L. A Brave New World. Electronic Edition. New York: RosettaBooks, 1932. Web. < http://nalanda.nitc.ac.in/resources/english/etext-project/huxley/BraveNewWorld.pdf> Read More