Heaney's Poems and King Lear - Family Ties Are Nothing but Lies - Follower, Digging and King Lear

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is following his son, looking out for him just as Heaney

looked out for him when he was a child.

In the opening two scenes of Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ we see the opposite side

of the spectrum, Cordelia and Edmund are treated as inferiors for different

reasons. Firstly we see that Lear’s age has turned him into a maniac obsessed

with power and respect. His sense of entitlement leads him to banish his

daughter who truly loved him only because she was telling him the truth, that

she will still love her father but will also have to love her husband. Just because

Lear won’t get all of his favourite daughters love he is overcome with and anger

and makes the rash decision of disowning her that will haunt him throughout the

rest of the play.

In the case of Edmund we see that he is not respected only because of his fathers

mistakes. Edmund didn’t have the choice to be born a bastard; he was born with

this curse and will have to live the rest of his life with it. Because of this curse

Edmund will not get any of his fathers land or power. As Edmund has been

treated this way his whole life we decides to get revenge by framing his brother.

By forging the letter he makes his father believe that Edgar is against him.

Proving that there is no respect between them and that their ties mean almost

nothing.

Kent also plays a big role throughout the play. Kent shares the same problem as

Cordelia, he tries to talk sense in to Lear by backing Cordelia. As Lear is already

angry at the news he has just received from Cordelia he banishes Kent for being

disloyal towards him. Even though Kent is now banished he comes back in

disguise to try and help his ex-master, this truly shows the reader that respect in

relationships with Lear seem to only go one way.

We see throughout both instances that the fathers of both children are blinded

by the liars in their families, Lear by his two eldest daughters and Gloucester by

his illegitimate bastard son Edmund. We see however that both fathers don’t

seem to acknowledge their ties with their children or their servants.

The idea that ‘family ties are nothing but lies’ is not the case in all of the texts. In

Heaney’s poems we see there is a strong sense of love between Heaney and his

father. A feeling that is respected by both parties and is not broken. In ‘King Lear’

however we see that the people who truly love Lear and Gloucester are either

banished or cursed. The people that are trying to use them have no

repercussions.

In conclusion we see that in Heaney’s poems family ties are respected and

nourished as they should be, whilst in ‘King Lear’ relationships are destroyed

because people are tricked, there is no element of trust. That’s why in ‘King Lear’

family ties are

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