A Comparison of Pride in King Lear and The Duchess of Malfi Essay

The Sin of Pride Exposed in force Lear, and The Duchess of Malfi In this brief monograph, we shall be hunting down and examining various creatures from the bestiary of Medieval/ rebirth thought. Among these are the fierce lion of imperious, egotistical power, a pair of wonderful peacocks, one of vanity, one of preening social status, and the docile lamb of humility. The lion and the peacocks are of the species known as overcharge, while the lamb is of an entirely different, in accompaniment antithetical race, that of humility and forgiveness. The textual regions we shall be exploring include the diverse expanses, from castle to heath, of William Shakespeare, the dark, sinister Italy of John Webster, and the perfumed ladys chambers of Ben Jonson and Robert Herrick. The tragic hero of Shakespeares King Lear is brought down, like all tragic heroes, by one fatal flaw, in this case haughtiness, as thoroughly as prides sister, folly. It is the Kings egotistical demand for conger ies love and, whats more, protestations of such from the daughter who loves him most, that institute the stage for his downfall, as well as calling to the minds of the Elizabethan audience of Shakespeares day the above-cited biblical edict. This daughter, Cordelia, dissolve be seen as the humble lamb mentioned earlier, and her love and filial veneration go not only beyond that of her sisters (which is nil) but beyond words, consequently enraging the proud king whose subsequent petulant rebukes extend to a smear of ironic Freudian projection Let pride, which she calls plainness, marry her (I.i.125). Here, Shakespeare is emphasizing Lears pride by having him indulge in the common tendency of despising in others (and in this case wrongly) what one is most guilty of oneself. Lears rash pride ... ...in which it is supposed to have been written for a certain Lady Haughty, a name indicative of not a little touch of pride, pardon my litotes. So, to sum up, we have captured, examined, and tagged our various creatures of pride, and it is now time to set them free once more, to run wild over the four corners of the earth. The lions pull up stakes devour all in their path with arrogant derision the peacocks allow peck and claw at one another as they get it on for position in their petty social circles, all the while pouting and preening, picture show feathers on their feathers and the lambs will go on being slaughtered in their docility, uttering never a scornful word, so that we may have lamb chops with fate jelly at Ruths Chris with our beautiful, precisely made-up girl friends. Pride goeth sooner destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall. Proverbs 1618