Category: Money and Power

For this blog, I am focusing on Edmund in Act 5 of King Lear as well as sexuality and nature.

In the beginning of the act, Edmund is doing very well. He is inheriting his father’s land, money, and titles and has both Goneril and Regan wrapped around his fingers. He is also extremely ruthless and evil in the beginning of the act. When Cordelia and Lear have been defeated in battle, Edmund hands the captain a note to kill Lear. His only values seems to be this situation of ethics where you have to act the way you’re supposed to act at any given time (5.3 lines 31-32). He gives the example that a swordsman cannot be tender hearted because he is in the situation to kill; therefore he must kill and cannot be kind. As the play goes on, “the wheel is come full circle” (5.3 line 174). Edmund has now lost the duel against his brother and has been injured. He recognizes that he had been making his way up but has now hit the bottom. He is again just a lowly bastard. In the end, Edgar spurs on a change of heart for Edmund. Edmund says despite his own nature he wants to do good and try to save Lear and Cordelia from the captain he ordered to kill them.

Earlier in the play, Edmund gives this soliloquy about how being a bastard is the most natural thing in the world. Yet, in other parts of the play other characters seem to blame the whole situation of Gloucester’s infidelity. In some ways, this is true. If Gloucester had not had the affair, Edmund would not have been born and some (of the misfortunate)  parts of the play would not have happened. Shakespeare also seems to place a dark emphasis on sexuality in Lear. Being “sexuality immoral” has bad consequences. Gloucester’s affair leaves him with a traitorous son and eventually sightless and dead. Goneril and Regan become more vicious in their competition to end up with Edmund, and both end up dead.

In the end, Edmund goes against his evil nature to try to do some good by trying to save Cordelia and Lear. This perhaps suggests that in the face of grace (when Edgar forgives him) that even the worst is capable of change despite their nature to be evil. However, even fighting his evil nature, Edmund is really unable to save anyone. Trying to fight his nature did not work. Cordelia and Lear still end up dying, both indirectly by Edmund’s hands. Since he actually is unable to do no good, does this mean that the play suggests that one’s nature cannot be changed?

 

It was apparent from the beginning that greed was the most powerful force in Ben Jonson’s Voplone. It creates a drive in each character to search for money, power, and respect. They seem to be so determined to acquire this, that they will do whatever it takes. Every individual becomes consumed with their own excessive desires, which ultimately leads to the downfall of each character. This defines the major conflict throughout the entire play.

Volpone’s greed is seen first in scene two, where the audience becomes aware of the scheme he has created. Volpone and Mosca, his servant, design a plan to create the illusion that Volpone has become very ill. Volpone has no parents, no wife, or no children to pass his fortunes to. His wealth must be distributed, therefore he seeks out the people of Venice, to bring him riches in attempt to receive portions of his heir. This is seen first when Volpone says, “This draws new clients daily to my house, / Women and men of every age, / That bring me presents, send me plate, coin, jewels, / With hope that when I die—it shall then return / Tenfold upon them.” (1.1.1) He refers to the people bringing him gifts as “clients,” as if they are just being used for his service. His desire for excessive wealth consumes his mind, and all he seems to seek is more. His plot continues to unfold throughout the rest of the play, which results in his self inflicted destruction

On the other hand, the “clients” of Volpone’s are also greatly consumed by their own greed. It is debatably equivalent to the greed Volpone shows: he desires their riches, and they desire his heir. Regardless, these characters end up showing their dark side in their attempt to receive Volpone’s heir. The most dramatic and memorable attempt was by Corvino. Volpone loved Celia, the wife of Corvino, and desired to sleep with her. In order to execute this, Mosca and Volpone told Corvino that doctors believe a women laying with Volpone will further aid his recovery. When Corvino become aware of this, he quickly declared that Celia will be the one to sleep with him. He told his wife he would cut her up and hang her from their house for everyone to see if she did not perform these duties. This was his wife, the women he “loved,” so the fact he would force his wife to sleep with another man, only to have the possibility of receiving his heir, is very troublesome. It proves his greed for personal wealth and fortune has a higher value to him then the love of his wife. It is a dark and evil scene that really portrays the depth that these characters will go to to acquire power and wealth.

Although other characters such as Mosca, Voltore, and Corbaccio are all greatly consumed by avarice, it is apparent to me that Volpone and Corvino are the two who desire wealth the most. There are other themes throughout Volpone that are very apparent and powerful, but I believe greed is the driving force for the destruction of the characters.

 

William Shakespeare is one of the most well-known English poets and playwrights of the seventeenth century. Most people have heard of William Shakespeare and are familiar with at least one of his works. To this day, his influence is still seen in the themes of many popular movies and stories. The works of Shakespeare are commonly taught in the English classroom; however, was he truly as talented as everyone says?

Students are taught from a young age that Shakespeare is the best British author, and his works far surpass those of any other poet. Is this true? According to Wikipedia, Shakespeare is “widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world’s pre-eminent dramatist.” However, in the work of Samuel Johnson entitled The Preface to Shakespeare, many of Shakespeare’s writing flaws are addressed.

Johnson writes, “He (Shakespeare) sacrifices virtue to convenience, and is so much more careful to please than to instruct that he seems to write without any moral purpose” (Johnson 2940). He continues to argue that Shakespeare does not provide justice for his characters who are good while not punishing those characters who are innately bad. Johnson mentions he leaves the fate of his characters “up to chance” (Johnson 2940). At the end of this paragraph, Johnson informs the reader that it was Shakespeare’s duty to add to the good of the world. By not providing appropriate justice, or lack thereof, Shakespeare is cheating his readers.

Johnson mentions another failure of Shakespeare regarding the plots of his plays. Johnson describes, “the plots are often so loosely formed that a very slight consideration may improve them, and so carelessly pursue that he seems not always fully to comprehend his own designs” (Johnson 2490). By saying this, Johnson means Shakespeare did not take the time to carefully plan his works prior to performing them. It is inferred that Johnson means Shakespeare did not carefully think out his plays and simply wrote down the first thoughts which came to his mind.

The harshest criticism of William Shakespeare comes in the next paragraph. Here Johnson states, “It may be observed that in many of his plays the latter part is evidently neglected. When he found himself near the end of his works, and in view of his reward, he shortened the labor to snatch the profit” (Johnson 2490). Here, Johnson accuses Shakespeare of not caring enough about his pieces to spend a sufficient amount of time on the conclusions. Johnson says Shakespeare is more focused on the monetary gain his plays provide rather than providing his audiences with a good story.

Personally, I love the work of Shakespeare. I find his plays fascinating and always enjoy reading them in class. However, I do question whether Shakespeare truly is the greatest playwright. After reading the work of Samuel Johnson, I question this even more. Are Shakespeare’s works as amazing as everyone says, or are they overhyped purely because of the name William Shakespeare?

Mary Honywood’s narrative accounts follow a very similar path as the Shakespeare’s play King Lear. In the beginning of the first excerpt of Honywood’s narrative is the discussion of “eternal inheritance,” which creates a parallel to King Lear because of the issue of distributing land and property once the father dies. Another parallel that comes into play is the “law of nature and of nations,” similar to King Lear, the father is debating which laws he should follow when passing down his land as inheritance. King Lear had only three daughters, the commonly followed law of inheritance at the time for a man with no sons would have been to divide his land equally among his three daughters, which Lear had planned to do. That is at least until his pride got in the way and he gave them a ‘love-test’ to see who loved him the most. This prideful moment eventually leads to Lear’s later death as he quickly loses both power as well as his sanity. What distinguishes Thomas Godfrey from Lear is that he has three sons and one daughter, so following the most common laws of inheritance of the time, Godfrey’s oldest son should inherit everything after his father’s death. Rather, Godfrey decides to give Mary’s “elder brother two parts, & the third he divided betwixt his two younger sons,” which did not follow any law of the nation during that time.

Additionally, the key part of inheritance is that it is given away once the owner is dead, in these cases once the fathers of the families, Lear and Godfrey, pass away. Yet, neither King Lear nor Godfrey wait until that point, they both distribute their property how they want among their children. This decision makes them vulnerable as it leaves them at the will of their children until they do actually pass away. Perhaps they both thought that their children would be overwhelmingly grateful and shower them with love; however, in this case it dod not happen because not only did they give up their children’s inheritance, but they gave up their power. Both of their decisions left them without homes or money of their own.

Shortly after Lear banishes Cordelia and gives his land to Regan and Goneril his mental health begins to rapidly diminish, leading to him dying very soon after. Mary Honywood’s father “continued not long after these discontentments, the whole tyme of his lyfe after the passing a way of his estat was but nine mooneths,” meaning that only nine months after distributing his land among his children, Godfrey also died. When left in the hands of their children to take care of them Lear and Godfrey would soon face their deaths as their children show little to no interest in taking care of them. In both the play King Lear and Mary Honywood’s narrative accounts of her father’s will, the leading men of the stories begin with lots of power, but giving away that power leads to both their deaths.

I feel like I really started to understand King Lear in Acts 3 and 4. I had a general idea of what was going on in the story while reading the first two acts, but now I understand the deeper meaning. Some topics that stuck out to me were the focus on the storm and the idea of divine intervention.

I have been surprised throughout the whole play with how much     Shakespeare discusses the storm. Sure, it makes a good setting for a dramatic story, but why else would he put so much effort into describing it? There must be a deeper meaning. I think that the storm may represent the excess of chaos and disarray in all aspects of the story. Also, the storm and King Lear’s sanity seem to mirror one another. Lear’s fall from sanity begins when he is locked out in the terrible storm. He raves directly to the storm, such as when he says “And thou, all-shaking thunder, smite flat the . . . world” (3.2.6-7). Lear also asks the storm to punish ungrateful men. I think that after being stuck out in the storm for a while, Lear is beginning to realize that he has been ungrateful for certain things in his life. He is starting to gain humility for his actions, especially against Cordelia. I think realization of what he’s done leads his mind further into chaos.

Lear also wishes divine punishment against those who have wronged him and begins to tell the storm how he doesn’t blame it for destruction like he blames his daughters. The theme of divine intervention and punishment continues into Act 4, when Gloucester tells Regan he wishes to see “winged vengeance overtake such children” (Regan and Goneril). Most characters in this story seem to believe in such things as fate and divine punishment. It is interesting to me that divine intervention and punishment is such a big theme in a tragedy like this, which usually focuses on human actions. The characters in King Lear seem to put most of the blame for tragic events on the cosmos, instead of on their own decisions.

The most symbolically notable part of Wednesday’s reading for me was the diction and pathetic fallacy present in act 3 scene 2.

Lear has just been cast out of his daughter’s castle in a great storm, and the scene in which he describes the storm is also applicable to his two conniving daughters

Diction-wise, although this could also be considered a syntactic move, Lear describes the storm   in each line in groupings of two; these adjectives display his opinion of his daughters as well as the storm. For example, beginning in line 3 of 3.2 Lear exclaims “You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout/ till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!”. Both lines include two elements describing the storm as over-powering and hellish as it “drenched our steeples” and “drowned the [weather vanes]”. Similarly, Lear’s two daughters overpowered him in their negotiation of his lodging, first allowing him half his men, then a quarter, then none, then hellishly forcing him out into the storm. He goes on with this theme in line 4 “You sulfurous and thought-executing fires,” again describing the storm and his daughters as evil, and quick to act on their evil thoughts. Lear solidify his analogy in line 16 by saying “you elements” and continuing on to describe the reasons his daughters should be grateful to him as though he were speaking to them through the storm.

As far as the pathetic fallacy, the storm Lear suffers though personifies his daughters. both the storm and his daughters are over-powering, deadly, and out of his control. Lear must suffer through the rathe of both, and find a way to survive through their burden.

Shakespeare is an author that students are either excited for or dread with all they’ve got when they see his name up next on the syllabus. I have always enjoyed his works and therefore was intrigued to begin reading King Lear.

I was very interested that the basic framework for the start of the play considers the issues with medieval inheritance guidelines. In those days, it was typical for the patriarch to pass his fortune down to the eldest male of the family. As someone who loves history and has taken a European history course, I have read a lot about this and it immediately caught my eye.

King Lear runs into a problem with this task because he has three daughters. Of the three, only two of the three have married. Okay, no big deal, he decides that he will divide his fortune up based on how well his daughters can proclaim his love for them.

This is where I started to question Lear’s decision making and ability to handle authority. It seems to me that pride clouds his capability to make informed and productive choices.

To start, he decides to divvy up his kingdom because he wants to remain king but doesn’t want the work. It is pride that prompts the idea to selfishly keep his title without the duties and responsibilities of actually being king. Instead of passing the title or keeping any of the work, he has too much pride to lose the position that places him as a leader.

He then orders his daughters to declare their love for him to determine how much of the kingdom they get. There is no other excuse for this than King Lear wanting to hear how loved and wonderful he is. In this way, his pride plays a major role again. It backfires because all of his daughters understand that this contest is to determine their future power and two of the three play into it as much as possible. Goneril and Regan both exclaim how they love Lear as much as life or how he gives them the most happiness they could imagine. Both of these declarations play right into Lear’s desire and need to boost his ego and play into his prideful nature.

It isn’t until his third daughter, Cordelia, makes a notion that she understands the game and isn’t willing to play into the prideful characteristics that Lear gets unsettles. She recognizes that she will never be able to declare her love with words as well as she can act on it every single day. When she refuses to contribute to this game, Lear goes so far as to completely banish her from his kingdom. He also banishes a loyal helper, Kent, for trying to show Lear what his youngest daughter meant.

Lear is unable to understand the magnitude of his actions because he is so overwhelmed with his damaged pride. We know his decision to banish his youngest daughter and loyal helper are outlandish because Shakespeare makes a point to include some reactions of other characters, including the two Princes battling for Cordelia’s love when the incident occurs.

This battle between King Lear’s ability to make sound decisions and option to side with his Pride will be very interesting to pay attention to as the play progresses!