King Lear: Dramatic Techniques To Affect Audience's Experience

Your Name Your Subject and Section Your Professor’s Name March 16, 2018 Mock IOC Excerpt 2: King Lear The passage taken from Act 4, Scene 2 of King Lear, portrays the affair between Goneril and Edmund. As we can recall from the story, Goneril is one of the treacherous daughters of King Lear and the wife of Albany. However, as Albany defected from the “bad guys” Goneril started being attracted and having affair with the villainous Edmund rather than his husband whom she noted as ‘cowardly’. All in all, the plot, character, and symbolism in this passage works together to give the readers an insight about Goneril’s character. Body The first part of the passage portrays Edmund and Goneril talking to each other when Oswald (one of their servants) went outside to inform her about her husband’s response to the impending war. Oswald proceeded and said that Albany “smiled at it. I told him you were coming; His answer was “The worse. Of Gloucester’s treachery” (Shakespeare and Furness). In line with this, I believe that this narrative uses a poetic device called “metonymy”, which is the use of a particular word referring to something else instead (Dictionary.com). Particularly speaking, “The Worse” does not only refer to the consequences of Gloucester’s actions that led to the war. This also connotes Albany’s dislike for the crimes that they’ve committed in the first place and his appeal for repentance. However, due to this, Goneril showed her dissent towards her husband’s ‘change of heart’, ...