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edettethegreat · 4 years

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Book summary #16

King Lear by William Shakespeare

(Just a quick warning- King Lear is relatively long and doesn’t have a lot of filler parts. So the summaries will probably be pretty long)

Part 1

Act 1 Scene 1- The play starts off with three guys having a conversation. Actually, it’s more like two guys having a conversation and the third one’s just there too for some reason. These three guys would be the earl of Kent, the Earl of Gloucester, and the earl of Gloucester’s son, Edmund. (If you’ve been following me for a while you’d know that Edmund’s my favorite character here. Pay close attention to him.)

Anyway, Gloucester and Kent talk about how Lear’s gonna be dividing up his kingdom amoung his three daughters, which is an overall weird thing to do. Then Kent’s like “so... is this other guy your son or something?”

“yup. But he’s illegitimate and I don’t like him”

“that’s kinda harsh- why don’t you like him?”

“because he’s illegitimate!”

“but he’s hot! you should like him because he’s hot!”

“I DO like him because he’s hot! I treat him basically the same as I treat his older and legitimate brother, Edgar. Yup, there’s no prejudice here!”

Note that Edmund’s standing right here the whole time while his father and his father’s friend are talking about him.

Then Lear walks in and is like “OK TIME TO DIVIDE UP MY KINGDOM! And ya know how I’m gonna do that? I’m gonna have each of you tell me how much you love me. Whoever loves me the most gets the most land.”

So his oldest daughter, Goneril, is like “I love you soooooooooo much!!!”

And Lear’s like “oh, well then you get the biggest piece of land automatically!”

Then Regan, Lear’s second daughter, is like “well I love you twice as much as she does!”

And Lear’s like “oh well then you get the next biggest piece of land!”

And then Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, is like “Dad. This is stupid. I’m not gonna kiss up to you so I could get land. You should know by now how much each of us loves you. We’ve been your daughters for a while now.”

And Lear is like “DID YOU JUST SAY YOU DON’T LOVE ME?! DO YOU HATE ME?! THAT’S IT, YOU’RE BANISHED AND I’M DISOWNING YOU!”

So then Kent, the only person with at least a drop of common sense, is like “Lear. That’s stupid. You should know by now that Cordelia loves you the most.”

And Lear Is like “OH YEAH? WELL YOU’RE BANISHED TOO!”

So things are looking great for Cordelia and Kent.

But wait! Cordelia was supposed to choose a suitor to marry today! But now she was disowned and doesn’t have a dowery! So the two suitors- the duke of Burgundy and the king of France- come in, and Lear is like “hey, she doesn’t have a dowery anymore, do you still wanna marry her?”

And Burgundy’s like “nope” but France is like “yeah”, so France marries Cordelia and they all live happily ever after.

Not.

This is a Shakespearean tragedy and we’re still in act one. You should know by now that they’re all gonna die.

Everyone leaves the room except for Goneril and Regan. They talk about how- plot twist- they actually hate Lear and only said they loved him so they could get money. Wow. Who woulda thought.

Act 1 Scene 2- Now let’s see how stuff is doing at Gloucester’s place. Edmund’s there and he’s not too happy. He soliloquizes about how no one likes him because he’s illegitimate, and now he wants revenge on the world. So for his brilliant revenge plot, he forges a letter pretending it’s from Edgar (his older legitimate brother) saying that they should really get rid of their father. Then Gloucester walks in and is like “oh boy I can’t believe Lear really did that to Cordelia and Kent!”

“yeah that’s really unfortunate’ *hides letter in a very obvious way*

“heyyy what’s with that letter you just hid?”

‘letter? What letter?”

“the one that’s currently sticking out of your pocket?”

“what pocket? What’s a pocket?”

“you’re very bad at playing dumb, Edmund. Just give me the letter.”

“but it’s private! And it would be very unfortunate if you read it and got mad at Edgar..”

“so it’s from Edgar? C’mon Edmund just let me see the letter”

“oh boy this sure is a bad situation I’ve gotten myself into, huh? If I don’t show you the letter, you’ll be angry. If I do show you the letter, you’ll be even angrier because you’ll know that Edgar wants to get rid of you”

“WHAT?! EDGAR WANTS TO GET RID OF ME?!” “oh no did I say that out loud? look dad, here’s the letter. Read it for yourself. Maybe he just wrote it as a test to see if I’d agree?”

*reads letter* “This is horrible! I’m so glad I have an honest and loyal son like you, Edmund. Who brought you this letter?”

“oh. Uh. Nobody! Yeah, It was just thrown through my window.”

“that’s very clever of Edgar. Are you positive this is his handwriting?”

“Oh yeah totally. No doubt about it.”

“Ok, well you’re my favorite son now.”

“ok. Ya know what? How about I go check with Edgar to see if he really meant what he wrote?”

“excellent plan. you’re the best, Edmund”

Gloucester leaves and Edgar enters.

“hey Edmund what’s up?”

“oh Edgar you won’t believe what happened! It’s so horrible!”

“what? What happened? Is everything alright?”

“did you do anything recently that would annoy dad?”

“no.. I don’t think so at least..”

“well I don’t know what happened but he’s furious! Yeah, I think he wants to kill you or something! ‘

“oh no! Do you think I could have been set up by someone?!”

“I have no idea! but you’d better stay away from dad until he calms down!”

“ok, thanks! You’re the best brother ever!”

“no problem!”

Act 1 Scene 3- Lear is staying by Goneril’s place, but Goneril doesn’t like that so she tells her servants to be as rude to him as they want. This one guy, Oswald, takes up this offer.

Act 1 Scene 4- Kent wants his job back, so he goes to Lear in disguise and asks for a job. Since this is a Shakespeare play, all the characters are face blind. Lear doesn’t recognize Kent and re-hires him. Then Oswald comes in and starts being rude to Lear. Kent trips him, which Lear thinks is the greatest thing in the world and is like “wow you’re great! Why didn’t I hire you sooner?”

The the Fool shows up (aka the only person here with more than 5 braincells) and he’s like “I bet you were wondering why everyone’s being so rude to you”

“huh. Yeah. I was wondering that.”

“it’s because now that you divided up the land among your daughters, you’re not really king anymore! Really, who does that?”

“oh. Ok.”

The the fool makes fun of Lear for a bit- and I quote-

Lear: Dost thou call me fool, boy?

Fool: All thy other titles thou hast given away; that thou wast born with

Anyway, Goneril finally shows up and she’s like “ya know what? We’ll compromise. We’ll be less rude to you if you send away the 100 soldiers you brought with you and only bring 50 next time.”

And Lear’s like “no way. I’m gonna go to your sister’s house. She’s gonna be nicer to me.” (Plot twist- she won’t be)

Then the duke of Albany- Goneril’s husband, who wasn’t in on the whole “be rude to Lear” thing- shows up. He’s like “sir is everything alright?”

And lear’s like “uh NO! Your wife is the worst and I hate her!”

“but what happened?”

Lear just yells for abit but eventually he gets around to saying that Goneril wants him to get rid of 50 of his soldiers. Then he leaves.

Albany turns to Goneril and is like “hey that wasn’t very nice-

“shut up I’ll do what I want”

So as you can tell they have a wonderful happy marriage.

Goneril writes a letter to her sister telling her to be rude to Lear too.

Act 1 Scene 5- Lear writes to Gloucester telling him what’s going on. The fool makes a bunch of jokes.

-end of Act 1-

#King Lear #shakespeare #william Shakespeare

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moodymurda · 6 years

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FEAR

Everybody is afraid SOMETHING. Even the most well put together, level headed, intelligent, cool, etc. person you know. We’re all afraid of SOMETHING. I like to believe that everyone is secretly freaking out on the inside. That makes me feel better about always freaking out on the inside. I’ve been minding my friends business recently, asking them what they’re afraid of. That question got surface shit. Like being afraid of heights, spiders, snakes, the dark, etc. I call that surface shit because that isn’t going to stop the flow of things. So I asked some people what was their biggest fear was. That requires more thought. It’s not just a phobia. It’s something that you’re probably actively working towards not making a reality. It might even be something that keeps you up at night or causes anxiety. Anyway some of the things my friends are afraid of are not being successful, getting old and not being happy, men, being kidnapped, losing their loved ones, etc.

At this point it’s only fair to say what I’m afraid of. My basic ass fears include: spiders, roaches, rodents (especially them evil ass bitches in the train stations of NYC). (I’m deadass so nobody try to do none of them clickbait ass youtube pranks on me. I will actually stop being your friend). My biggest fears are being trapped with no way out and being alone. This probably seems like I'm just telling what people are afraid of but stay with me, it takes a lot for me to get to my point.(I hope you guys don’t mind because I fully didn’t explain why I asked. I didn’t use names so it’s still a secret. I’m good at secrets, don’t worry.)

I got to a point where I allowed fear to control me. I wouldn’t do certain things or say certain things because I was afraid. I’m afraid of “what if”. What if shit doesn’t go my way, what if shit goes bad, what if I made the wrong decision, etc. etc. I’ve concluded that it’s okay to be afraid of things. We’re all human and we’re not invincible. What isn’t okay though is allowing fear to control your situation. Don’t judge me (or judge me I don't care but I kinda do), but my favorite book of all time is Oh, the Places You’ll Go! by Dr. Seuss (who wasn’t even a real doctor, what a fraud). I loved it as a child because of the illustrations honestly. As I got older, the words began to mean so much more to me and whenever I’m losing hope I read that book. I’m so serious right now, It’s super long but I read the whole thing. One thing that really sticks out to be from that book is, “You’ll get mixed up, of course, as you already know. You’ll get mixed up with many strange birds as you go. So be sure when you step. Step with care and great tact and remember that Life’s a Great Balancing Act. Just never forget to be dexterous and deft. And never mix up your right foot with your left.”

I’m about go No Fear Shakespeare on y’all. It’s not hard to understand what that quote is telling you but for the purposes of this whole thing I’m going to explain anyway. Gotta make a connection to the text like they taught us in elementary school ya know? SO, of course you’re afraid of things. You’re going to encounter scary things your whole life but please never let them stop you. Don’t look at it as a dead end, look at it like a speed bump. A little bump in the road never hurt anyone too bad (except for the time when I was on the bus in middle school & my bus driver SPED over a speed bump. I hit my face on the window.) Even that didn’t hurt me too bad ya know. Yea my face hurt a little bit, I’m dramatic so I was convinced my nose was broken (it wasn't). But it didn’t stop me. I kept going, kept living my life & now it’s a thing of the past. I can even go as far as to say it’s something that I can laugh at now. Take everything as a lesson. The great prophet Jay Z once said “If you feeling like a pimp nigga go and brush your shoulders off. Ladies is pimps too, go and brush your shoulders off. Niggas is crazy, baby, don’t forget that boy told you get. that. dirt off your shoulder.” What are you afraid of? You don’t have to actually tell me (you can if you want to) but just think about it for a minute. It’s okay to be afraid of whatever that thing/those things are. You’re okay, you’re going to be fine. Whenever something sets you back, get back up and dust them shoulders off babe. You got this shit.

#me #ni #im a fucking scholar bitch

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