Ah, King Lear, one of Shakespeare's most famous tragedies and a pox upon history students everywhere. Kidding! Anyway, while the play had a great many motifs to be considered, one of the most central was the theme of opposites. Not only between characters can we see this theme manifest, but within characters as well, as a few of them turn from people of stature to beggars and the banished, and from villains to heroes.

Firstly, quite a few characters in the story have counterparts that are the polar opposites of them. Look at Goneril and Regan's husband: Cornwall, Regan's man, is willing to kill her father in his desire for power, while Goneril's husband Albany is aiming to save the king and restore peace. Lear's youngest daughter is the honest and virtuous one, as opposed to Lear's buddy Gloucester's youngest kid, who is wicked and conniving. The same division appears between Edgar and Edmund, which parallels Lear's two oldest daughters and Cordelia.

Characters also......

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Title: Theme Of Opposites Within King Lear
Approximate Word Count: 667
Approximate Pages: 3 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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