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Imagery in King Lear (King-Lear) In the immense amount of writing that William Shakespeare had done in his career as a playwright and or writer in general there are bound to become consistencies and reoccurring themes that make his writing so popular and interesting. In many cases it island to tell whether the thematic structure that many writers follow is intentional or not, but it is possible that there is a reasoning for a specific kind of imagery that a writer likes to outline his / her writing after. There are dominating images which are characteristic of Shakespeare's work throughout, however in some of the earlier plays they are very obvious and in many cases intentional. Imagery, as defined by the Sixth Edition Handbook to Literature, is in its literal sense a collection of images in a literary work that may be an object, phrase or entity.
The Handbook explains that imagery is often not intentional but seems to be a basis for a look at a deeper meaning of a certain piece of work. It is important to be aware of certain recurrent images which are symbolic in Shakespeare such as the use of light and its components in Romeo and Juliet, disease and how it is used in King Lear and what I will be discussing in this paper the use of the heart as an entity and how it is used inthe dramas written by William Shakespeare. The heart image is seen literally over a thousand times in the works of Shakespeare with a frequency of almost thirty per play and mostly in the tragedies. With so many references of the heart used in the tragedies and the typical time frame used to perform each play, which was about two hours, the audience might hear twelve to fifteen heart images an hour and as many as one every five minutes. Of course there are many inconsistencies in the allocation of the term within the plays with King Lear obtaining most of the references.
In King Lear, which seems to have a tragic double plot, the images referring to the heart cue the reader or audience to the confusion that is evident in the love between the parent and the child and the breakdown of the social bonds in which the play begins. In the play Lear seems to forget the love that he has always had for his favorite daughter, Cordelia, whose name itself in Latin means heart. When Lear offered one-third of the kingdom to his daughter Cordelia she does not know what to say and cannot explain her feelings when she says: Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty According to my bond; no more nor less 91 - 93) In this we see that Cordelia cannot take the appreciative path that her sisters took in order to make their father happy and confident to leave the kingdom to his daughters. The whole time all Lear wanted was to be comfortable that the kingdom was going to be left in good hands. We see a better use of the veracity of he word (heart) when Lear goes to visit Regan and she will not come out to greet him. Lear: O, me, my heart, my rising heart!
but down 56 - 58) I am wondering if in this passage Lear is talking of his broken heart released from the clutches of his daughter or if it represents his blood pressure that could be raising because of his anger in his daughter, either way the use of the heart in this instance has a dramatic foreshadowing affect on the rest of the play. King Lear is a man who is portrayed as a very compassionate man who lives on the fact that his trust in his daughters will never be added. The betrayal by his loved ones sets up the impact of the play which in turn shows how dramatic the use of the heart and all of its imagery components is for King Lear. At the end of the play when Lear loses his last daughter Shakespeare leads us to understand that he had lead a life of war and turmoil and has transformed himself from being a bitter, crusty, old man into becoming a caring and complete human being.
Some critics say that Lear might have died from a heart attack from all the stress he had to endure in such a short amount of time. I think he died from a broken heart from the loss his daughters, his sanity, and the peaceful life he so desired during his retirement fromm the throne.
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Research essay sample on King Lear Daughter Cordelia
