FREE ESSAY ON KING LEAR

KING LEAR

King Lear
In the play King Lear written by William Shakespeare a collection of images are used to
express different points Shakespeare is trying to relay to his audience. One reoccurring
image that kept popping up was animal images. Shakespeare displays these animal images
when King Lear and many of the other characters in the play talk about Goneril and Regan.
The animals that Lear and the other characters compare the two sisters to are not very
pretty. They are compared to the likes of tigers, serpents, and even monsters. These
reoccurring images have an important idea behind them that Shakespeare hopes to
communicate his readers.
Shakespeare waste no time in comparing Goneril and Regan to animals. When Lear parts from
Goneril at the end of Act I, after she has sneered at him and diminished the number of
his retainers, he calls her a "Detested kite" (I. iv. 269.). He also compares her to "the
sea-monster" (I. iv. 268.), by which he possibly means a mythological monster that would
betray its own father. King Lear also comments on his daughters ingratitude using animal
imagery when he said," How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless
child" (I. iv. 295-296.). Lear comments once more on his daughter's "monster ingratitude"
(I. v. 40.). Lear is showing how he feels about how his daughters are treating him by
comparing them to unpleasant animals.
Lear in scene IV has a quarrel with his other daughter, Regan, where again he uses animal
images to show how his daughters are sinking below manhood to animals. Lear seeks out his
daughter, Regan, at Gloucester's castle, and finds out that her husband has put his
faithful friend Kent in the stocks and that both husband and wife have retired to bed and
do not wish to see him. When Regan finally comes down, she tells him "You should be
ruled, and led by some discretion that discerns your state better than yourself" (II. iv.
147-149). Lear responds by saying "struck me with her tongue, most serpentlike, upon the
very heart. (II. iv. 159-160). Lear here again is describing Regan to a serpent, which is
a large poisonous snake. Both daughters seem to him now like unusually cruel animals.
They show this when they shut him out into the stormy night.
In the storm scene, Lear's hurt from his daughters affect his attitude to the mad Tom of
Bedlam (Edgar). He thinks, on the analogy of his own suffering, that his daughters must
have abused Poor Tom. Nothing else could have brought him to such a pathetic state. This
reminds Lear of his own "pelican daughters" (III. iv. 75). This is an allusion to the
medieval belief that pelican young fed on the blood of the parent bird. This analogy
compares to how Lear's daughters are feeding on him giving them the control of the
kingdom. 
Shakespeare uses these animal images throughout his play to describe Goneril and Regan.
It will be noticed that most of the animals used in these comparisons are unpleasant
(kite, serpent, tigers, pelicans, foxes, and even monsters). Shakespeare is showing that
the sisters are sinking from the level of man, who stood between the angels and the
animals, to the level of the animals. They have become like some of the most unpleasant
birds and animals of prey. In their cruelty and unnaturalness they are less than human.