Act 3 Scene 4- Poor Toms joins the fun on the heath
SETTING: Heath before a hovel
SUMMARY:
Lear and co. arrive at the hovel and start to go in.
Lear starts speaking about with ear speaking about daughter's ingratitude and the poor.
Meet Poor Tom (Edgar in disguise) who was in the hovel and is pretending to be mad by spieling a whole lot of gibberish- seems convincing as NO ONE realises.
Lear has a speech about social justice.
Tom talks about his last life (in some clarified gobblegook) and Lear believes he has the same fate and that Poor Tom shows the true nature of man.
Gloucester arrives and Edgar goes into full madness overdrive, Gloucester lead them to shelter in a barn.
KEY THEMES
Madness
Wisdom
Fate->cyclical
Power upheaval->prays to beggars/vagrants
Critique to society
Ideas of man being nothing more than animals->pg.141
Loyalty->G
Effeminisation of Lear-> 'No I will weep no more' pg.136
CONTEXT:
Witchcraft & Devils-> 1603 Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures, links with Poor Tom's ramblings
Book of Revelation->apocalyptic reflect fear over Elizabeth's death
KEY QUOTES:
· 'Thould'st shun a bear...Thould'st meet the bear i'th'mouth.' Pg.135 lines 9,12
· 'That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,/And show the Heaven's more just' Lear pg.137 line 35 SOCIETY/JUSTICE/
· Edgar's speech pg.141 lines 86-102-> moral lessons and allusion to Oswald/world
· 'unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal' pg.141 line 109-110 HUMANITY/NATURE/ANIMALISTIC IMAGERY
VOCÊ ESTÁ LENDO
The Discombobulated Guide to King Lear
Não FicçãoAnyone else trying to wade through English Literature books?? Join the club! Although I love English Literature one does have to keep the passion alive and therefore during my exams I got a couple of ways of making it fun and decided to share with y...
