King Lear Justice Quotes

‘with base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?’

Plosives create and angered tone. Furthered through interrogatives developing frustration at the natural order.

Knott: ‘it is not just the good we sympathise with, but also the evil’ - we are aligned with these views

‘should I stand plague of custom […] Legitimate Edgar’

Diction choices evoke connotations of disease- critical attitude, evoking sympathy from the audience. Repetition creates a mocking tone, depicting jealousy

‘As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.’

Metaphor compares humanity to powerlessness at the mercy of the all powerful! Gods- traditionally associated with order and morality, are depicted here as malicious. Encapsulates the despair that permeates the whole play- in which all suffering appears random and unjust.

AO3: Great of Chain of Being - divine justice maintained order in the universe

‘The wheel has come full circle: I am here'

Imagery of fate- belief in individualism and free will deconstructed in the fall from power- POETIC JUSTICE.

AO3: Wheel of Fortune, Jacobean belief that attempted to understand why bad things happen to good people.

‘Now Gods, stand up for bastards!’

Exclamative conveys angered and determined tone, crying out for social justice.

Law of Primogeniture- right of first born son

‘take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel […] and show the heavens more just’

Interjection and exclamative reflect a tone of shame and self-loathing, with the 1st person pronoun contrasting to the royal ‘we’. Bitter tone of voice draws attention to anagnorisis, plosives highlighting anger and injustice.

AO3: failed harvests, bubonic plague, various famines leading to extreme poverty that Shakespeare would have witnessed in London. Poor were deemed invisible to higher society, so Shakespeare’s recognition amplifies sense of hope and justice!

‘no, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, and rat have life, and thou no breath at all?’

Chain of Being broken down in multiple interrogatives as Lear despairs. Furthered by the iambs, creating a disdainful and sorrowful tone at the injustice of goodness being punished!

Kullmann: ‘C’s death in KL devoid of any ulterior meaning’ - amplifies the great injustice towards C- a symbol of goodness.

‘here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood’

Plosives convey Lear’s irrational rage at Cordelia for her response of ‘nothing’ in the love confession.

AO3: Homily of Obedience is subverted

‘thou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, in my corrupted blood’

Bodily imagery reduces G to physical body only, conveying his complete distain and feeling of betrayal