The Final Scene

7 important questions on The Final Scene

In the final scene, what does Lear regard prison as?

He welcomes prison as paradise - he does not seem to know that his and Cordelia's time is short.

What does the duel between Edmund and Edgar symbolise?

 

It is a metaphor for the struggle between good and evil.

What does the delay of Cordelia's and Lear's death do to the audience?

It perfectly heightens the tension, making the strain almost unbearable.

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Why do some critics find comfort in Lear's death?

 

They argue that he died of joy thinking he saw a movement of Cordelia's lips.

What is the most powerful stage image in the final scene and arguably the whole play?

Contrary to all ideas of natural justice, Shakespeare presents the extraordinarily powerful image of Lear bearing the dead Cordelia in his arms, an image which both has echos of the Christian iconography of the 'Pieta', and an ironic and painful acho of a father cradling his child in infantry. Lear's desperate anguish is conveyed with searing language: "Howl, howl, howl, howl! o you are men of stones!"

 “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all?” - this question remains unanswered, what does this suggest?

 

Shakespeare suggests there is no ultimate significance to human life that separates us from animals or any greater meaning behind human suffering.

What does Shakespeare's tragic vision oppose?

Any Aristotlean cathartic where the divine order is reasserted and the hubristic protagonist restored to a right relationship with the gods before he dies.

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