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King Lear Creative Assignment Theme: Disguise Disguise is used and portrayed all throughout King Lear with several characters. These characters go through transformations of themselves for purposes such as stealth, survival and social reasons. The characters we have used to display this theme of disguise shown in the images are King Lear, Edgar, and Kent along with who they discern themselves to be through their conversion of character. Beneficial to Act 1, we have chosen the core of how Kent begun his path to disguise. In Act 1, Scene 1 (140-150), Kent and Lear get into an altercation regarding the extent of his family eve.
This causes Lear to banish him from his kingdom, but Kent refuses to a degree that forces him to cover-up his appearance so he may return. Favorable to Act 2, we appointed Edgar during scene 3, where he is being labeled as an outlaw and thus has to disguise himself as “Poor Tom”, a peasant. Though he may strongly incorporate his modified persona, he does state that the actual Edgar is still within him psychologically. Supportive to Act 3, we preferred the first scene at which point a Gentlemen and Kent are accommodated. Kent is giving the Gentlemen a purse and inning for Cornelia while assuring he is noble along with wearing a disguise.
At this point Kent is hastily looking for the king during a raging storm. Complimentary to Act 4, we appointed the first scene which includes Gloucester, the Old Man, and Edgar articulating their current situation. With Gloucester being blind, he addresses how he has been deceived through disguise while Edgar is left to grieve over what has happened. Lastly, in Act 5 Scene 3 we chose the time of Edger’s speech as he confesses how he disguised himself as a madman beggar and became a creature espied by the low class of the community.
Edgar is asking for blessing after what had happened to Lear and is struck with grief. Therefore, due to these examples we show that deception shows to me a prominent theme in the play. This use of disguise is a literary feature which opens doors for alternative sub plots which shows how strong the relationship of these characters is shown. Page and Line Numbers page 17 Lines 140-150 page 109 Lines 1-20 page 143 Lines 41-55 pages 207-209 Lines 1-26 page 311 Lines 190-201 King Lear: Blindness By Seventeenths