Tuesday, November 29, 2011

King Lear act 5, death death death.

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,
And thou no breath at all?
-Lear (seeing Cordelia's dead body)

Why do the 'good' and virtuous characters also die? While I don't mind at all the Goneril and Regan die, it makes an interesting image to see Cordelia lying alongside them with another seemingly more pure character like Gloucester. I strangely don't feel thematically satisfied as I imagine all of them lying on the stage together. It's like in war, while we may see a side as 'the goodies' or 'the baddies', it's always more complicated than that. There is always onslaught and bloodshed on both sides and that is the nature of it. It get's messy and that is why we don't like war. The innocent die.

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