What's a good topic for an essay on King Lear?

Question

My little sister is struggling to come up with a good thesis, but as I've never read the book, I'm not much help.

General ideas that could be molded into a thesis, or links to good resources would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

It's a play, not a book, but whatever. The main theme is the madness of Lear. He is driven that way by what he perceives to be the ingratitude of his 2 older daughters and their bad treatment of him. He rejects the only daughter (Cordelia)who really loves him because she won't express that love in flattering words. The 2 older daughters(Goneril and Regan) say wonderful, meaningless things to him about how much they love him, and are rewarded with huge tracts of land.. He Decides to live with each one for half the year, with his servants and guards etc, but they don't like this and take to treating him rudely. Hope she can pick something useful out of this!

Answer 2

The main theme of King Lear is, first and foremost, Lear's misjudgement of his three daughters, which leads to his downfall and brings about many other terrible events in the process.

www.wikipedia.com (search "King Lear") has a very good synopsis of the play, which should be of use to your sister. Depending on your sister's age, you could help her by reading this synopsis first, then clarifying the huge and deadly consequences that occurred to so many people solely as a result of an old man's poor judgement regarding his own three daughters.

Good luck - :)

Answer 3

Madness is without doubt a prevalent aspect of the play but I think it may be overly simplistic to suggest that insanity is, in itself, a theme. Perhaps it would be more accurate to view Lear’s insanity as one aspect of a wider symbol for division. Prime examples of this theme would be, the division of his kingdom, division between his daughters (who fight over Edmund), between Edmund and his brother, between Edmund and his father. Essentially most of the play is a metaphor for a split between the respect for authority and evil’s self consuming race to the top.

Further evidence that King Lear is a tragedy of division and not of psychology is evident when one compares the different kinds of characterisation surrounding the madness of Hamlet and of King Lear. With Hamlet the madness is evidently part of his very being, fundamental to his procrastination. With Lear his insanity is always referenced alongside an implication of a division or a cracking.

II iv 216 “I prithee daughter, do not make me mad I will not trouble thee, my child; farewell
We’ll no more meet, no more see each other”

II iv 282 “I have full cause of weeping,
But this heart
Shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,
Or ere I’ll weep. O fool! I shall go mad!

III iv 11 “When the mind is free
The body’s delicate; this tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else
Save what beats there- filial ingratitude”

If you want to read further on these ideas in particular try http://www.shakespearehomework.com/page1.htm

for essays on King Lear in general try

http://www.shakespearehomework.com/homepageHKLE.htm