King Lear

King Lear

1. Characters

   • Royal Family
     • King Lear
       • Fool
     • Cordelia
       • King of France
       • Duke of Burgundy
     • Gonerill
       • Albany
       • Oswald
     • Regan
       • Cornwall
   • Gloucester
     • Edgar
     • Edmund
   • Kent/Caius

2. Review Questions

   • Compare and contrast Portia, Ophelia, and Cordelia as daughters based on their portrayals, functions, and actions.
   • Compare and contrast two of the following couples based on Kimbrough's essay "The Prisoners of Gender": Cornwall and Regan, Gonerill and Albany, Lord and Lady Macbeth, and Gertrude and Claudius.
   • Identify and explain one distinctive feature about the play
   • Identify a major turning point and explain why and how it is important
   • What are the functions of Acts IV and V in "King Lear"?
   • Explain the connections between plot (Lear and his daughters) and the subplot (Gloucester and his sons).
   • Discuss the significance of the following locations: Lear's castle, Regan and Cornwall's castle, Gonerill and Albany's castle, Gloucester's castle, and Dover. (Analyze the function of home/homecoming)

3. Themes

   • Appearance vs. Reality
   • Nature
   • Parent-Child Relations
   • Justice

4. Settings

   • Dover
   • Gloucester's Castle
   • Regan and Cornwall's Castle
   • Gonerill and Albany's Castle
   • King Lear's Castle

5. In-Class Discussions

   • Lear's vanishing castle/function of each "home"
   • Function of each act
   • original productions were happy endings