King Lears family essays

King Lear's family essays Families play quite a large role in our world. They shape and develop individuals, leaving their fingerprints on ones life and personality forever. An institution as important as family life could never be ignored in any art form and literature is no different. Families have been the main subject of countless numbers of novels, poems, short stories, and plays. In the three works A Thousand Acres, King Lear, and Paradise Lost the family is crucial to the plot and in a sense the family, as a singular unit, is the main character. In Paradise Lost, Milton writes of a different type of family, an angelic family centered on God. All of the spiritual beings are a part of this family, however, just as in regular families, some members fall and deceive and betray others. A Thousand Acres and King Lear share much in their interpretation and portrayal of family life, they portray the deceit and betrayal that underlies troubled families. The story of the Cook family is almost a carbon copy of the saga of the Lear family. The head both households, the father, is eventually driven to insanity by the incessant scheming within their respective households. Both Mr. Cook and King Lear are wealthy and powerful and it is that wealth and power that seem to interest their family more than fatherly love and companionship. ...