Individual Characters In The Night Face Up

People find validation to satisfy their identity instead of challenging it. Being “fake” is how people would call it nowadays, loving somebody when it is convenient. Just like the motorcyclist being in denial for what he contributed towards his death in ‘The Night Face Up’, the greed, jealousy and hatred Anastasia and Drizella had in the Disney story of ‘Cinderella’ or even the discrimination women face on a daily basis. Having a pompous mindset with phony surroundings as your environment can backfire and can question who one can trust. Shakespeare’s play ‘King Lear’ reveals the attitudes of individual characters in the play through family relationships, loyalty and the status of women.
Firstly, the play comments on family relationships through
In Act IV, Edgar (disguised as Poor Tom) sees his father Gloucester and his very fragile state right after his eyes were gouged out. With The Old Man escorting Gloucester, saying “...I have been your tenant and your father’s tenant these fourscore years”(4.1.13-14). This shows the commitment the tenant had towards Gloucester’s family for eighty consecutive years. Another example would be Edgar as he has been loyal to his father even though he won’t see it (Gloucester being deceived by his illegitimate son Edmund and being figuratively blind in general). Losing his trust for his son Edgar, Gloucester gives his entire inheritance to Edmund. Instead of Edgar to be hot headed and retaliate, he stuck by his side in disguise as ‘Poor Tom’ but Gloucester never realizes that he was wrong about Edgar until he is completely blind and says "As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods / They kill us for their sport." (4.1.40-43) This is Gloucester finally accepting his faults and false assumptions about his son Edgar, who has been loyal to him since the beginning of the play and throughout the trouble he went through. Furthermore, another example would be Cordelia as she shows loyalty in a very subtle but slowly manifested way whereas she was not going to bow down to her father or contribute to the flattery her father wants to have and rather she says brutally “Good my lord, you have begot me, bred me, loved me; I
Women in a patriarchal society face extreme discrimination, just like how it is still being seen today in many parts of the world however, women have a significant role as well. In Act I, Lear putting his three daughters; Goneril, Regan and Cordelia in trial to decide how to split his land into pieces based on how much each daughter loved him, he expected Cordelia to be the most extravagant to proclaim the love she has for him. He was disappointed when she couldn't express as much as her sisters. The impact of him not hearing anything from his favourite daughter resulted to banishment. Kent had to intervene and try to calm Lear down saying “Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least, Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sound. Reverb no hollowness.” (1.1.167-173). Though what Kent said did not make any difference towards Lear’s anger to the extent his life was being threatened in defence of Cordelia, it shows the effect of how a woman can have on a man just like it had on her father. Lear also tries to put women in power (though he did not have a choice because he has no male heir) in a patriarchal system. Even though he fails miserably, he gave women a position only a male could