Who reigns as best villain in King Lear?

Thus far in Shakespeare’s King Lear, it is apparent that Edmund is the most villainous character. Edmund is dubbed ‘villainous’ because he is the individual who does the most wrong and lacks any and all guilty feelings. Edmund is a master of deception from his first monologue. He finds that he is just as worthy of respect as his half-brother, Edgar, and feels he’s been “deprived” (1.2.3) in all respects due to his being a bastard child. His father, Gloucester, enters and Edmund is quick to manipulate him into receiving a falsely-worded letter. The letter states that Edmund is to get half of the inheritance, according to his brother and against his father’s wishes and current societal norms. Gloucester is angered by this indiscretion on Edgar’s part and marks Edgar as a villain. The action itself is devious but it’s Edmund’s behaviors that makes the trick all the more cunning. Edmund feigns subordination and inferiority, claiming he is undeserving of the inheritance but at the close of the scene he states “Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit” (164). Edmund then goes to Edgar saying it’s in his best interest to leave, for Gloucester is mad at him.
A true master of deception can make their victims see them as protecting and aiding them when really they are accomplishing the opposite. This continues in Act 2 when Edmund confides in Edgar that he should vacate his hiding spot and leave the Kingdom entirely. Edmund proceeds to draw his sword on Edgar to fool Gloucester. Edgar then has a chance to leave. Edmund even goes so far as to wound himself so as to convince Gloucester of Edgar's villainy. Edmund is quick to give Gloucester his altered version of the story and the Earl sends out men to have Edgar killed. The first by-product of Edmund’s wrath is Edgar’s descent into the Poor Tom character and excommunication from his Kingdom and family.
Edmund makes is so that the royal family is tricked into thinking Gloucester is an enemy to them, due to his loyalty to Lear. Edmund has seen his wealth be threatened by this loyalty and he will throw any family member under the metaphorical bus if that is what’s necessary to maintain power. Edmund finds that “The younger rises when the old doth fall” (3.3.23), with no semblance of remorse. Edmund discloses Gloucester’s treason to the bloodthirsty Cornwall, who finds Gloucester a traitor and thief of King Lear. Gloucester is blinded by Cornwall, this being the second product of Edmund’s villainous ways.

Explication of “Gathering Leaves,” and Relation to King Lear

Robert Frost’s poem Gathering Leaves, reflects on Autumn’s necessary task of raking. The speaker opens the piece with tactile imagery relating to “bags full of leaves,” and utilizing a simile that states they are “light as balloons.” Frost continues to use imagery but in the auditory sense in that he discusses the sounds associated with raking and compares it to “rabbit and deer / Running away.” The following stanza is one that relates best to Shakespeare’s King Lear in that it discusses nature’s power and how it is something the speaker cannot harness, even though it is a part of him. Gathering Leaves’ narrator claims “But the mountains I raise / Elude my embrace, / Flowing over my arms / And into my face.” This individual finds that nature’s great power, or “mountains,” are out of his reach even though they touch upon his “arms” and face.” This image is very similar to Act 3 of Lear when the King is standing out in the storm and challenging the harsh weather. In Scene 2, Lear cries “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow!” (3.2.1) and a close-reading proves that the storm’s effects mirror the chaos occurring in Lear’s life. This is akin to Gathering Leaves in that following the assertion of Nature’s power the narrator compares raking to the futility of life. Frost writes “I may load and unload / Again and again / Till I fill the whole shed, / And what have I then?” thus depicting the repetitiveness that is raking and it’s lack of accomplishing anything substantial. The speakers even discusses the uselessness of the leaves being raked saying they are “nothing for weight,” “nothing for color” and “nothing for use.” Ultimately the narrator comes to the conclusion that leaves are a harvest themselves, albeit a useless one.

King Lear versus Nature

King Lear introduces the theme of nature in Act 1. After having disowned Cordelia, Lear refers to her as “a wretch whom Nature is ashamed,” (1.1.213). It is here Lear appeals to Nature and sees it as being an enforcer of the social order. The social order that Lear demands is one where children are loyal to their parents, unlike his “wretch” Cordelia. Later in Scene 4, Lear provides an apostrophe to Nature where he asks the gods to punish Goneril by going “Into her womb,” to “convey sterility” (1.4.246). Thus far, it can be seen that Lear calls to Nature when his authority is called into question. Lear has given away all of his lands but refuses to have his power diminished in that it is simply natural for him to be the one to rule. After being refused to see Regan on the grounds of sickness, Lear remarks “Whereto our health is bound; we are not ourselves / When nature being oppressed, commands the mind / To suffer with the body” (2.4.102-104). This statement further delves into Lear’s beliefs on nature in that what is being said is not done out of convenience for his self-centered and vengeful persona. This is an honest and understanding allowance that finds when an individual is ill they no longer function in a normal way, similar to Lear’s previous notions that when norms are compromised, Nature is wronged. The discussion of Nature by Lear begins to reach it’s climax at the close of this Scene when Lear tells Regan “Allow not nature more than nature needs, / Man’s life is cheap as beast’s” (2.4.264-265). Here Lear asserts that his army is a truly unnecessary item of his because all items not essential to survival are unnecessary. He argues that humans have desires beyond that of basics like food and shelter. Lear sees that human nature demands excess.

Act 3 sees not just Lear’s discussion about Nature but his actual interaction with it. Lear stands outside in a raging storm, having been pushed out by his daughters. Lear calls to the Heavens “I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness; / I never gave you kingdom” (3.2.16-17). Lear claims that Nature never hurt him, something his daughters were so quick to do after gaining his inheritance. As the King stands under the tempest and cries “Here I stand your slave, / A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man” (3.2.19-20). King Lear admits that he is lacking the strength, power and likeability of his previous years and sees that he is now a slave to Nature and all of it’s “horrible pleasure” (3.2.19), meaning he is willing to be struck by lightning because he lives in a corrupted society that lacks gratefulness. This is seen in his lines “Crack nature’s molds; all germens spill at once / That makes ingrateful man!” (3.2.8-9).

King Lear Act 2 - Edmund's deception

Previous to Act 2, Edmund had duped his father, Gloucester, into thinking Edmund's brother Edgar was going against his wishes of not providing Edmund with inheritance and he convinced Edgar he planned to help him by having him hide within their manor.  Act 2 opens with Edmund being told a rumor about a quarrel between the Duke of Cornwall and the Duke of Albany (both husbands of the Lear sisters) and decides to use it in his plot to oust Edgar. Edgar enters and Edmund advises him to “fly this place!” (20), so as to avoid being caught up in the dilemma and face Gloucester’s wrath. Edmund convinces Edgar that he will help him by issuing a false threat in Gloucester’s presence. After Edgar leaves, Edmund goes so far as to harm himself to make his scheme more convincing. Edmund tells Gloucester that Edgar’s intention was to “Persuade me to the murder of your Lordship” (43). Edmund also adds that Edgar insulted him and created a fake letter to trick the two men. The lie has Gloucester convinced and he has men sent out to find and kill Edgar. Edmund’s plot reveals his conniving and wanton personality. Edmund believes he is justified in receiving Gloucester’s inheritance in that he has struggled as a bastard child his whole life. Gloucester is quick to believe Edmund’s lies and seek out punishment for Edgar, proving a sudden shift from preferring neither child of his to calling Edmund a “loyal and natural boy” (83) who deserves his fortune.  Edgar is a trusting character in that he goes along with all Edmund advises him to do and is punished for doing no wrong, a theme in this play that implies a fundamentally good and honest character.

Explication of "The Man with Night Sweats"

Thom Gunn’s poem “The Man with Night Sweats,” gives a vivid account of an individual suffering from Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome and their experiencing an evening of sweating. The speaker describes waking up “cold,” throwing the reader into the uncomfortable and sudden feeling of their experience. He contrasts this discomfort with the line “Prospered through dreams of heat,” to describe his intimate past. The “dreams of heat,” having unfortunately caused the narrator to “Wake to their residue, / Sweat, and a clinging sheet.” Here the reader is lead to believe that the sexual past of the speaker has caused them to contract HIV and progress into suffering from AIDS. He utilizes the image his “flesh” as being a “shield,” that was resilient in that it “was gashed, it healed.” His unsafe sexual choices were “adored” at the time but led to him becoming sick and no longer living in a “body [he] could trust.” The skin metaphor is continued with the lines “The given shield was cracked, My mind reduced to hurry, My flesh reduced and wrecked.” This is the narrator’s experience with realizing the illness he had contracted and now has a busy mind and a wrecked body. The second to last stanza return the reader to the speaker’s room where he is “Stopped upright / …Hugging my body to me / As if to shield it from / The pains that will go through me.” Here the use of shield has switched it’s meaning from his ruined body to his own caring for himself and attempt to prevent and soothe the “pains” that AIDS has caused him. The final line speaks of the man’s resignation to the larger-than-life issue at hand, stating “As if hands were enough / To hold an avalanche off.” The cold imagery returns in the word “avalanche.“ The first line shoes that his illness causes him to grow cold and the last claims AIDS’ entire existence is akin to a snowy natural disaster, something that kills, freezes over and is both naturally caused and possibly the fault of a certain human.

Hamlet Character Rankings

Preference
1. Ophelia - I would tentatively say that Ophelia is my favorite character of the play simply because despite the blatantly misogynistic vibe of Hamlet, particularly Hamlet himself, Ophelia rebelled as a female and was able to strike down the social order in part by allowing madness to speak her mind and commit suicide in a vastly Christian nation. My favorite rhetorical device of Shakespeare’s is the scene in which Ophelia gives out flowers in what appears to be a state of madness but actually has much more significant meaning. Ophelia feels limited in her speech in sanity so when she goes mad, her honesty unleashes through implications of the provided flowers.
2. Horatio - Horatio is a trustworthy character and a dutiful servant/friend to Hamlet. I chose him as second because he offended me the least and ended the play on an honorable note.
3. Gravedigger - The Gravedigger, despite his lack of sympathy, was wildly clever and managed to equalize all kinds of people in Hamlet’s eyes.
4. Laertes - Despite my distaste for Laertes when he admonished Ophelia for her potential sexual choices I liked that he was a fearless character and was forthright with his anger and revenge, unlike Hamlet. Also his guilt at the end of the play seemed sincere, and I appreciated that.
5. Hamlet - In class Hamlet has been described as whiny, indirect, and duplicitous. I agree that Hamlet is a less-than likable individual, but I’ve enjoyed his wit since the beginning of the play and can’t help but root for him at the finish when he finally slays Claudius.
6. Claudius - The King was not written as a wholly affable or sympathetic character but I’m someone that admires a good villain and saw him as both a good motive for Hamlet and possibly a person he identified with in an Oedipal sense.

Loyalty
1. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern- The pair may not be entirely helpful in Hamlet’s case but they are consistently valuable to Claudius and aid him whenever possible. Their job-well-done even leads to their unfortunate death.
2. Horatio - Horatio is endlessly dependent. Even in the final act when he wished for death from the traumatic events he stayed faithful to Hamlet’s orders that he “tell [his] story.”
3. Ophelia - Despite her father Polonius’s controlling and patronizing nature, Ophelia remains obedient to him.
4. Gertrude - The Queen is stuck between agreeing with her husband and protecting her son, although she manages to balance both. This is somewhat struck down by the last scene when Claudius instructs her not to drink and she sassily replies “I will, my lord. I pray you, pardon me.”

Explication of poem "35/10"

Sharon Old’s poem “35/10” is a poem that outlines a scene involving mother and daughter. The speaker, a mother, brushes out the hair of her young daughter and reflects on the differences the two share, particularly the child’s youth and her aging. The title “35/10” presents the central meaning of the novel, that being a side-by-side comparison of the mother (age 35) and her daughter (age 10). The first contrast of the poem is the girl’s “brown/silken hair” and the speaker’s “grey gleaming” atop her scalp. The woman describes herself a “silver-haired servant behind her,” using the term silver to further display her graying hair and calls herself a servant because it provides not only the connotation that she cares for her but that her looks are bellow her daughter’s, even placing herself “behind” her in both physical senses of the word. The poet describes her neck folds as “clarifying,” while her child’s “fine bones of her/hips sharpen,” to show that both females are gaining more plainly seen characteristics but the mother’s age is growing more clear, while her daughter’s woman-hood and thin frame are now in sharper focus. The contrasting continues with the lines “As my skin shows/its dry pitting, she opens like a moist/precise flower on the tip of a cactus.” The speaker describes herself as a dry pit and her daughter is seen as a “moist…flower.” The use of flower can be read with differing connotations. Firstly, flowers are a symbol of beauty, something that the girl has recently acquired. The symbol is also a reference to the youth’s virginity, a trait that stands precarious, as if on the thorny top of a cactus plant. This idea of child-bearing is reinforced with the next lines that compare the speaker’s “falling” ova that are more likely to be a “[duds]” and her girl’s “purse of eggs, round and/firm as hard-boiled yolks“ which “is about/ to snap its clasp.” The final lines depict the narrator’s attitude to the shift between the two, saying “It's an old/ story—the oldest we have on our planet—/the story of replacement.” To the author, she is bitter and resigned to the change, citing that her youth and beauty is easily interchanged with her daughter’s and that this shift is as old as time itself.

Thinker vs. Doer

My general belief is that all humans are both thinker and doer. In most cases one cannot exist without the other. A second generalization is that all humans lie on a spectrum of action. The dichotomy of thinker versus doer is similar to the physiological response of “fight or flight.” There are those that weigh their options and exit a situation and some that simply act on impulse. Like the spectrum concept, most people lie in the middle, but in the dramatizations that are Shakespearian plays, most seem to exist in the extreme. This is seen best in Act 4 where Prince Hamlet continually debates over whether to kill his vile half-father/half-uncle King Claudius. To Hamlet “A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom / And ever three parts coward.” The Prince finds that when a person over-thinks a situation they are held back by three-quarters of cowardice and only one-fourth of reasonable evidence. Hamlet is an individual that would be considered a thinker by most standards and lie very east on the spectrum of fight and flight. Hamlet’s counter-part in the play, Laertes, represents the fighters in society. He acts prior to thinking something through. When news of his father’s death gets back to Laertes he immediately returns to his homeland of Denmark and confronts King Claudius, who he believes is to blame, and proceeds to insult and threaten him. Laertes has nothing holding him back while Hamlet doesn’t seem to allow anything to push him forward.
I relate more to Hamlet in that I am very much a thinker but less frequently a doer. I sometimes feel caged in my mind and unable to function with my body. I over-think things but feel as if I don’t act in excess. I try to accomplish all that is needed of me but sometimes a particular action is filtered so many times through my brain that it never reaches completion and has been lodged into the deep recesses of my psyche. This isn’t to say that I have no purpose at all. Most deeds are done on auto-pilot and our brains are too preoccupied with other thoughts to even recognize the action being done while other times the action is never done because our mind has latched onto something else. I am a thinker, but this is something I pride myself in because without proper reason our actions could be done in vain.