Joshua Mellinger
English 3100
10/29/06

Questioned Identity in King Lear

"Shakespeare's plays are written from a male perspective and depict predominantly conflicts of masculine identity." (Rudnytsky 2) Throughout Shakespeare's King Lear, the issue of identity is touched on repeatedly with Gloucester's fall from power, Edmund's snatching of it, and Lear's violent fall from benevolent king to brutish castaway. Lear and Gloucester's sanity is crushed, their sovereignty completely stripped, sense of fatherhood scrambled, and their masculinity questioned. Edgar also goes through a change in identity, although voluntary, when he chooses to become Tom to hide from Gloucester. Edmund, the bastard son, also has his own conflicts over his legitimacy and the identity it forces him into -- and what he is going to have to do to pull himself out of the hole Gloucester has dug for him. Shakespeare illustrates how these men question their identity and what that doubt puts them......

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Title: Identity In King Lear
Approximate Word Count: 1216
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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