King Lear (OCR A Level English Literature): Exam Questions

‘Lear gives away his power long before he gives away his kingdom.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play King Lear.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

[15 marks]

Discuss the following passage from Act 1, Scene 4, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and dramatic effects.

LEAR

Does any here know me? This is not Lear.

Does Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?

Either his notion weakens, or his discernings

Are lethargied. – Ha! waking? ’Tis not so. —

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

FOOL

Lear’s shadow.

LEAR

I would learn that; for, by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters.

FOOL

Which they will make an obedient father.

LEAR

Your name, fair gentlewoman?

GONERIL

This admiration, sir, is much o’ th’ savour

Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright.

As you are old and reverend, should be wise.

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires;

Men so disorder’d, so debosh’d and bold,

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn. Epicurism and lust

Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel

Than a grac’d palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy. Be then desir’d

By her that else will take the thing she begs

A little to disquantity your train;

And the remainders that shall still depend

To be such men as may besort your age,

Which know themselves and you.

LEAR

Darkness and devils!

Saddle my horses; call my train together.

Degenerate bastard! I’ll not trouble thee;

Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERIL

You strike my people; and your disorder’d rabble

Make servants of their betters.

Enter ALBANY.

LEAR

Woe that too late repents! – O, sir, are you, come?

Is it your will? Speak, sir. – Prepare my horses.

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child

Than the sea-monster!

ALBANY

Pray, sir, be patient.

LEAR

[ To Goneril ] Detested kite! thou liest:

My train are men of choice and rarest parts,

That all particulars of duty know;

And in the most exact regard support

The worships of their name. – O most small fault,

How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!

Which, like an engine, wrench’d my frame of nature

From the fix’d place; drew from my heart all love

And added to the gall. O Lear, Lear, Lear!

Beat at this gate that let thy folly in

[ Striking his head ]

And thy dear judgment out! Go, go, my people.

[ Exeunt Kent and Knights ]

ALBANY

My lord, I am guiltless, as I am ignorant

Of what hath moved you.

LEAR

It may be so, my lord.

Hear, Nature, hear; dear goddess, hear.

Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend

To make this creature fruitful.

Into her womb convey sterility;

Dry up in her the organs of increase;

And from her derogate body never spring

A babe to honour her! If she must teem,

Create her child of spleen, that it may live

And be a thwart disnatur’d torment to her.

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,

With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks,

Turn all her mother’s pains and benefits

To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child. Away, away!

[ Exit ]

[15 marks]

‘Goneril and Regan are more sinned against than sinning.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play King Lear.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

[15 marks]

Discuss the following passage from Act 4, Scene 6, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and dramatic effects.

GLOUCESTER

O, let me kiss that hand!

LEAR

Let me wipe it first; it smells of mortality.

GLOUCESTER

O ruin’d piece of nature! This great world

Shall so wear out to nought. Dost thou know me?

LEAR

I remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squiny at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid; I’ll not love. Read thou this challenge; mark but the penning of it.

GLOUCESTER

Were all thy letters suns, I could not see one.

EDGAR

[ Aside ] I would not take this from report. It is,

And my heart breaks at it.

LEAR

Read.

GLOUCESTER

What, with the case of eyes?

LEAR

O, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case, your purse in a light; yet you see how this world goes.

GLOUCESTER

I see it feelingly.

LEAR

What, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears. See how yond justice rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places and, handy-dandy, which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOUCESTER

Ay, sir.

LEAR

And the creature run from the cur?

There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a dog’s obey’d in office.

Thou rascal beadle, hold thy bloody hand.

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thy own back;

Thou hotly lusts to use her in that kind

For which thou whip’st her. The usurer hangs the cozener.

Through tatter’d clothes small vices do appear;

Robes and furr’d gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks;

Arm it in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

None does offend, none – I say none; I’ll able ’em.

Take that of me, my friend, who have the power

To seal th’ accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,

And, like a scurvy politician, seem

To see the things thou dost not. Now, now, now, now!

Pull off my boots. Harder, harder – so.

EDGAR

O, matter and impertinency mix’d!

Reason in madness!

LEAR

If thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough; thy name is Gloucester.

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither.

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air

We wawl and cry. I will preach to thee. Mark.

GLOUCESTER

Alack, alack the day!

LEAR

When we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools. This a good block!

It were a delicate stratagem to shoe

A troop of horse with felt; I’ll put’t in proof;

And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,

Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

[15 marks]

‘Lear learns nothing worth knowing until he has lost everything.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play King Lear.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

[15 marks]

Discuss the following passage from Act 3, Scene 2, exploring Shakespeare’s use of language and dramatic effects.

LEAR

Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks; rage, blow.

You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drench’d our steeples, drown’d the cocks.

You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,

Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunder-bolts,

Singe my white head. And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world;

Crack nature’s moulds, all germens spill at once,

That makes ingrateful man.

FOOL

O nuncle, court holy water in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’ door. Good nuncle, in; ask thy daughters’ blessing. Here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

LEAR

Rumble thy bellyful. Spit, fire; spout, rain.

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.

I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness;

I never gave you kingdom, call’d you children;

You owe me no subscription. Then let fall

Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave,

A poor, infirm, weak and despis’d old man;

But yet I call you servile ministers

That will with two pernicious daughters join

Your high-engender’d battles ’gainst a head

So old and white as this. O, ho! ’tis foul!

FOOL

He that has a house to put’s head in has a good head-piece.

The cod-piece that will house

Before the head has any,

The head and he shall louse;

So beggars marry many.

The man that makes his toe

What he his heart should make

Shall of a corn cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake.

For there was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

Enter KENT.

LEAR

No, I will be the pattern of all patience;

I will say nothing.

KENT

Who’s there?

FOOL

Marry, here’s grace and a cod-piece; that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENT

Alas, sir, are you here? Things that love night

Love not such nights as these; the wrathful skies

Gallow the very wanderers of the dark

And make them keep their caves. Since I was man

Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard. Man’s nature cannot carry

Th’ affliction nor the fear.

LEAR

Let the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pudder o’er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulged crimes

Unwhipp’d of justice. Hide thee, thou bloody hand;

Thou perjur’d, and thou simular man of virtue

That art incestuous; caitiff, to pieces shake,

That under covert and convenient seeming

Hast practis’d on man’s life. Close pent-up guilts,

Rive your concealing continents, and cry

These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man

More sinn’d against than sinning.

KENT

Alack, bare-headed!

Gracious my lord, hard by here is a hovel;

Some friendship will it lend you ’gainst the tempest.

Repose you there, while I to this hard house —

More harder than the stones whereof ’tis rais’d;

Which even but now, demanding after you,

Denied me to come in – return, and force

Their scanted courtesy.

LEAR

My wits begin to turn.

[15 marks]

‘Lear is never more of a king than when he is mad.’

Using your knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of the play King Lear.

Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations.

[15 marks]