King Lear, Acts IV-V

Act 4.7 (begins p. 145 – Cordelia is reunited with Lear) and Act 5.3 (begins p. 154). The post has two parts.

1. Look at the ending of a filmed version of King Lear (see below) and in a paragraph compare it with the text of the play. What does the film emphasize and what does it downplay or leave out? Comment on how the speeches are complemented (or not) by the staging, action, sound effects, music.  

I watched the BBC version of King Lear. The lines remained true to the play; I didn’t catch anything made up. There were some chunks of text left out of the film, but nothing that drastically altered the story.

The staging really emphasized the emotional tension between the characters. The set was fairly simple. The white, foggy background made it seem as if the story could be taking place anywhere, at any time. The costumes also drew the attention solely to the characters and their emotions, rather than the aesthetics. All the men wore similar shades of plain brown, except for Lear and Cordelia, who wore basic white robes to symbolize the death of uncorrupted love. These simplicities allow the viewer to focus on the relationships between the characters, one of Shakespeare’s strengths. This is a testament to the brilliance of Shakespeare, that the emotional issues his characters face are still relevant enough to drive the play.

 2. For you, in what ways is King Lear a tragedy? As a tragedy in what ways is it like or unlike Dr. Faustus or The Tragedy of Mariam? This is a big topic but I want you to think about it while the experience is fresh – a paragraph will be fine.

            The first characteristic that comes to mind when I think of tragedy is death. In King Lear, all of the main characters – and a good portion of the minor ones – die. The death of significant characters in Dr. Faustus and The Tragedy of Mariam defines those works as tragedies as well. Also, it ends tragically, with a hopeless outlook on man. As Albany says to his few fellow survivors, “Our present business is general woe” and that they should not expect to “live so long” as those who recently died (186). This ending differs from that of Dr. Faustus, which is a moralist play. Dr. Faustus is responsible for his death; it is clear that his deal with the devil was evil and unnatural, and that he must die. In King Lear, characters like Regan are also directly responsible for their death. Others made choices that inadvertently led to their death. Shakespeare’s tragic characters face emotionally complex trials and while the consequences are often foreshadowed, they are not immediately obvious. This realism is perhaps more tragic than the didactic cause-and-effect story of Dr. Faustus.