Warren Postma
asked:
What is the significance of the play King Lear, in the book. I read the book and didn't feel that it was intended to be significant what play was on, in the opening scenes of the book. Did I miss the significance? I liked the book but didn't grasp clearly whether Lear was a significant choice or not that significant.
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TheJudge
In many ways Arthur is like King Lear...a character drunk on power and ego whose self-absorption end up harming the ones he loves most (Miranda/Cordelia). And only in facing death comes to realize that he has led an empty life and seeks to redeem himself.
In many ways our world/society is like King Lear...can we find redemption or does it take a tragic act -- getting thrown out of our kingdom to face the storm or a pandemic wiping out much of civilization as we know it -- to find greater meaning.
In many ways our world/society is like King Lear...can we find redemption or does it take a tragic act -- getting thrown out of our kingdom to face the storm or a pandemic wiping out much of civilization as we know it -- to find greater meaning.
Wendy
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Joseph Kelly
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Dh
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Robert Goodman
Actually that was TOO obvious! As I started to read it, I was thinking, "I sure hope the whole thing doesn't turn out to be a version of King Lear." For a while I thought we were to be spared that cliché, but as the book progressed it became obvious we weren't.
If you're going to write a novel or any kind of story, don't be so heavy handed in the beginning that it's easy for the audience to anticipate. Should've made it that he was in some OTHER Shakespeare play, then drop some hints along the way that there was another that was his favorite, and by the end we'd've figured out it was Lear.
If you're going to write a novel or any kind of story, don't be so heavy handed in the beginning that it's easy for the audience to anticipate. Should've made it that he was in some OTHER Shakespeare play, then drop some hints along the way that there was another that was his favorite, and by the end we'd've figured out it was Lear.
Kumari de Silva
In the play Lear has 3 daughters, 2 who pretend to love him and one who really does. Due to a misunderstanding with the daughter who actually loves him Lear sends her away - - in Station Eleven Arthur has 3 wives who are shadows of this relationship structure. Miranda is the only one who actually loved him, but he casts her aside pretty callously for wife #2. Wife #3 is not well developed but we get the idea she's the same type as #2.
In the play after his bout with madness Lear does come to appreciate the love his estranged daughter has for him. In the novel Arthur doesn't become "mad" per se, but he's so far from his former self that Clark notices they barely have a friendship anymore. His friend has become a husk of a person, a hollywood type. And it's after this transformation that Miranda (like Cordelia in Lear) comes back and is kind to Arthur.
The play is also about power and money. The bad daughters really value power and money. But ultimately that isn't what's important in life. In this novel after the Georgian Flu having fame as a movie star suddenly has no traction. I mean they probably, if they survived, still have nicer places to live then everyone else, but there's no more tabloids or places for them to be famous.
In the play after his bout with madness Lear does come to appreciate the love his estranged daughter has for him. In the novel Arthur doesn't become "mad" per se, but he's so far from his former self that Clark notices they barely have a friendship anymore. His friend has become a husk of a person, a hollywood type. And it's after this transformation that Miranda (like Cordelia in Lear) comes back and is kind to Arthur.
The play is also about power and money. The bad daughters really value power and money. But ultimately that isn't what's important in life. In this novel after the Georgian Flu having fame as a movie star suddenly has no traction. I mean they probably, if they survived, still have nicer places to live then everyone else, but there's no more tabloids or places for them to be famous.
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