Scribd Logo
Upload

Welcome to Scribd!

  • 53 views

    Imagery

    Uploaded by

    Stuart Henderson
    The document discusses several types of important imagery in Shakespeare's play King Lear including vision and blindness, diseased bodies, animals, nothingness/the void, the storm, old men vs. babies, and clothing vs. nudity. This imagery is useful for developing arguments about themes like deception, pride, truth, corruption, and humanity. Shakespeare effectively develops imagery throughout the play to help the reader gain insight and understanding.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Imagery

    Uploaded by

    Stuart Henderson
    53 views8 pages
    The document discusses several types of important imagery in Shakespeare's play King Lear including vision and blindness, diseased bodies, animals, nothingness/the void, the storm, old men vs. babies, and clothing vs. nudity. This imagery is useful for developing arguments about themes like deception, pride, truth, corruption, and humanity. Shakespeare effectively develops imagery throughout the play to help the reader gain insight and understanding.

    Copyright

    © Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)

    Available Formats

    PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd

    Did you find this document useful?

    Is this content inappropriate?

    The document discusses several types of important imagery in Shakespeare's play King Lear including vision and blindness, diseased bodies, animals, nothingness/the void, the storm, old men vs. babies, and clothing vs. nudity. This imagery is useful for developing arguments about themes like deception, pride, truth, corruption, and humanity. Shakespeare effectively develops imagery throughout the play to help the reader gain insight and understanding.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    53 views8 pages

    Imagery

    Uploaded by

    Stuart Henderson
    The document discusses several types of important imagery in Shakespeare's play King Lear including vision and blindness, diseased bodies, animals, nothingness/the void, the storm, old men vs. babies, and clothing vs. nudity. This imagery is useful for developing arguments about themes like deception, pride, truth, corruption, and humanity. Shakespeare effectively develops imagery throughout the play to help the reader gain insight and understanding.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as ppt, pdf, or txt
    of 8

    Core Imagery

    The play is full of useful imagery that you can use to support the arguments you want to make in your essay writing. For example, all of the vision and blindness imagery that exists throughout the play could assist you in developing arguments about deception, pride, or truth. And again, because Shakespeares so good at developing imagery throughout his plays, an awareness of the imagery will really help show your understanding of the play as a whole.

    Vision / Blindness
    - The play deal with both literal blindness and metaphorical blindness. - The play becomes an exploration of Lear and Gloucester gaining sight. - The blindness imagery that surrounds both characters is a representation of their poor judgement. - The gaining of sight seems to actually be a gaining of well-attuned intuition; Gloucesters I see it feelingly - True sight, or insight, must be earned.

    Bodies
    - Some of Lears key insults are based around diseased bodies - Lears mind becomes diseased as he heads out into the storm - When Lear, as symbolic of the kingdom, becomes sick or seems plagued, it is a representation of the diseased nature of the kingdom

    - The obsession with the diseased body imagery illustrates how corrupted Lear becomes as a consequence of his actions
    - There is the sense the humanity is both the disease and the cure Cordelia compassion vs. Goneril and Regans selfishness.

    Animals
    - Frequent imagery to describe people as animals in this play. - For the most part, the animals arent connected to positive connotations - Basically, any text that makes such overt connections between humans and animals is likely to be suggesting that humanity has a lot in common with animals - Fords ...our existence seem[s] like a border between two nothings, and makes us no more or less than animals who meet on the road watchful, unforgiving, without patience or desire is very close to what Shakespeare is giving us here

    Nothing/The Void/Emptiness
    - While not necessarily an example of imagery, this is certainly a core motif in the play - Connected, in the most part, with those who suffer in the play

    - Those who are forced to struggle with their place/purpose/meaning in society are forced to confront this void or emptiness - What we create, we create as a means of avoiding/distracting ourselves from the nothingness that were surrounded by?

    The Storm
    - At its most basic level the storm is a representation of what is happening in Lears mind - Lears madness is even referred to specifically as a tempest - A storm is a great purging, which must happen if calmer whether is occur again, and so the storm is ultimately cathartic - It is a reminder of the insignificance of humanity. Even the greatest king is at the mercy of nature; simply pawns tossed about by infinitely powerful forces

    Old Men vs. Babies


    - Frequent connection between old age and infancy throughout the play - particularly in reference to Lear - With old age comes a drop is responsibility, just like with childhood - the idea being that we are looked after in that old age - The problem is around knowledge though - the old self knows what it is to be independent, know what it is to have autonomy, and therefore struggles to reconcile the need to be looked after with the desire for independence

    - There seems to be an interesting suggestion that that age old desire of being a kid again wouldnt quite work out how wed like it to

    Clothing vs. Nudity


    - The play sees clothing as a lie, or at least a facade that simply hides true human nature - Edgar spends a significant amount of time essentially naked as Poor Tom, and Lear attempts to join him once they meet - Ultimately all humankind is vulnerable - just like the storm imagery - but here, the image of of fundamental humanity: defenseless, a poor bare, forked animal.

    You might also like