King Lear Summary and Reflection

King Lear, written by William Shakespeare, is the perfect example of a dysfunctional family. Lear is nearing his death so he must distribute his land between his three children, which he decides by how they prove which daughter loves him the best. This causes the main conflict in the play, which makes sense because the father has pit the daughters against each other. Lear takes entertainment from the fool, who is, sadly, hung at the end of the play. This is important because in some performances, the fool is also played by the same actress that plays Cordelia, who was disowned by her father when she responded with “nothing” when he asked her to voice her love for him. She comes back to her father’s court as the fool.

King Lear is practically a whole royal family drama. All relationships, especially in a family, are based on reciprocation. Lear expected all of his daughters to love him unconditionally, even though he obviously favored Cordelia. He expected to be treated well at each of his daughters homes, but he behaved poorly and was a burden to his daughters, so they kicked him out. Because they knew he held materials in high regard and not true actions of emotion, they gave him false love, only flimsy flattery. Be honest in love and keep balance in the relationship, or feelings will be hurt and the relationship could possibly be damaged forever, like with Goneril and Lear.

Goneril understands the political importance of how she acts, and that’s why she can give a good, well spoken answer to her father in the beginning of the play. She plays well in the world of politics. Regan doesn’t have her own mind; she only follows her older sister. Both of their pledges of love to their father are very contrived and false. Cordelia is the youngest, but she is very headstrong. She loves her father the most. She pushes his authority, but only because she is too smart for her own good.

After all of the drama and trouble that he caused, Lear did not get what he wanted in the play. Originally he wanted to retire in peace like a King with servants around him and many knights, and most of all, his loving daughters by his side, preferably Cordelia taking care of him. His mistake in the beginning of the play causes him to lose all of his people, become homeless, lessen in status, and it caused the death of all three of his daughters in different ways. In the end, he was alone, and he died of grief.

Another sub-family issue that ties into Lear's family problems is the relationship between Edgar, Edmund, and Gloucestier. Edgar is Gloucestier’s oldest and legitimate son. Gloucestier also had a bastard son named Edmund, who is younger than Edgar. Because Edgar was born at the right time to the right mother, Edmund is bitter towards him and holds it against him. Society has said that Edmund cannot be equal to Edgar, even though their father loves them equally.

Shakespeare and Me

                When I was ten years old, I fell in love with an older man. Shakespeare may be hundreds of years older than me, but he taught me how to laugh, love, and learn. My relationship with Will opened up many different doors for me, in speech competitions, in auditions, in major life decisions.

                During the summers, we live in Wimberley, TX, a small hill country town an hour south of Austin. Wimberley defines my summers. Even though it’s a small town, my sister and I are very good at keeping each other entertained. We don’t need much except for the calm, crystalline, spring-fed river that runs below our house and the fort we made in the short cypress trees where we read all day. Toward the end of our first summer there, my mom suggested we go see Romeo and Juliet, which was being performed by local high school students in an outdoor theater called The EmilyAnn.

                I remember seeing Juliet in her tower, and Romeo, listening to her, standing below by the vines. The concrete stage of the outdoor theatre didn’t look out of place in the middle of a forest. Every once and a while my mom leaned over and whispered explanations of what the actors were saying so I could understand what was going on. I still didn’t entirely understand, but I didn’t care. I just knew it sounded good. Will’s words seduced me.

                It wasn’t long until it dawned on me that perhaps I, too, could be on that stage, performing those beautiful lines spoken by those amazing characters created by my thoughtful bard. I auditioned at the EmilyAnn the next summer and won my first role as an officer in Twelfth Night. All of the other actors were in high school and I was only twelve. They were so intimidating and nothing like their characters on stage. But they took me under their wing. I looked up to them, because they became a part of my family throughout the month of rehearsals all day outside in the blazing sun. At the beginning of the show, they go to the top of top of the hill to raise the flag which shows the whole town that the play has started, something that Shakespeare did in his time. After two straight weeks of nightly performances, they lower the flag on closing night and seniors make their speeches because they can’t come back after they go to college. After one of the plays, the guy who played King Lear stopped to hug me. He scared me the most, but on top of that hill in the dark with the millions of stars looking down on us, I could hear him crying right along with me. He hugged me tight and said, “I love you. I can’t wait to come back and see you all grown up, playing Juliet.” My heart stopped. That’s all I ever wanted, but I had never told him that. He could see that it could happen. Will was giving me a hint. I knew I had to work hard for him now.

                My hard work paid off. In June of 2010, I was cast as Juliet as a fifteen year old. I was living my dream of playing the role that inspired my obsession.  After one performance, I was shaking hands with all of the audience members. Suddenly I looked down and a little girl was looking up at me with huge adoring eyes. She said that after this she wanted to act, too, and she wanted to be just like me. The cycle had come full circle. It was my turn to change someone else’s life. I hope that girl gets to play Juliet once in her life. This year, I will be the senior making my tearful speech in front of Will’s younger admirers. He may be wooing other people, but I’m still grateful for the part he played in my life.

                When I needed Shakespeare’s help the most, he gave me Juliet. I leaned on Juliet to get into a high school for the performing arts, where both sides of my brain are constantly challenged. My theatre classes worked my right side of my brain by showing me how to analyze and develop characters. My academic classes worked my left side of my brain by introducing me to biology classes which made me question how people learn which led to an interest in neuroscience. I use my science to inform me on how a character thinks, and I use my theatre as a stage to apply my sciences. Thank you, Will, for showing me things I could never put together on my own.

I had never considered acting before, but because I fell in love with Shakespeare that summer, I fell in love with the whole art. Without Will, I would have never met many important friends, never entered speech competitions, never had the opportunity to go to an eye-opening arts school to foster my love for theatre and be exposed to science like I never had before. Every summer when I perform Shakespeare on that hot concrete stage, I can feel what Shakespeare has helped me become.

A Raisin in the Sun and All My Sons Comparison Analysis

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, set in the 1950’s in Chicago, is a classic play because it flawlessly portrays the daily life of a lower class African American family struggling against the economy, and a society that keeps them down. Trying to keep the family together, Walter plots grand schemes, and tries to use his mother’s money to help himself. By not only addressing universal problems to connect with everyone, Hansberry also uses specifics of the time and race to make the audience care for each character while also identifying with each character. Deep, complicated characters like Walter and Lena Younger (his mother) push the play along because of the amount of thought and analysis put into these iconic characters. Because of the real, truthful, honest writing in the play, A Raisin in the Sun has earned its spot in the history of classic American plays.

As to another famous play, All My Sons has many similarities in general plot and that it’s about the hardships of life, raising a strong family, and the effect of money on people.  Raisin In The Sun obviously remains focused on the point of view of an African American family which adds a different undercurrent then the death of the Keller’s son.  Yet both illustrate the greed of the older man, the father figure in both pieces sacrifices everything for wealth yet believes that they are doing it for their families.  This similarity then extends itself to the loyalty of both wives to men when they know perhaps subconsciously (All My Sons) that their husbands have done wrong.   Both pieces use a classic nuclear family which makes the pieces at once profoundly American in culture and easy to watch due to the similarities in real life.  Both of the pieces also show the cracks in the aforementioned Nuclear family by taking what should be a perfect image and contrasting it with the truth of human greed, catharsis, and love.