Lear is unable to give selfless love to his family and his unable to understand love as something independent from wealth and power "Thy fifty yet doth double five and twenty, And thou art twice her love." ... Through use of facial expressions Eyre reveals the emotions of characters and on several occasions highlights the despair they experience as a result of family disfunction. ... Using a minimalist style for the set designs Eyre takes the emphasis of the play away from Lear's kingly splendors and places it on the most basic social structure - the family. Eyre does not create scenes co...

• Word Count: 1119
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

First and foremost, the two stories are about star crossed lovers, one with a single pair, being Romeo and Juliet, and the other with two pairs, Lysander and Hermia, and then Demetrius and Helena, though Demetrius sought after Hermia love until the love spell with put upon him. In Romeo and Juliet, their two families are long time rivals, so naturally they have a problem with them falling in love, and they are forbidden to be with one another. In Midsummer Night's Dream, Lysander and Hermia are in love, but Hermia's father forbids their matrimony and gives only Demetrius his daughter...

• Word Count: 200
• Approx Pages: 1
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Their love seems real. ... In the Elizabethan period, violence was a nobler concept seen as a means of conserving one's honour and family pride. ... This recurring imagery conveys to the audience the growing divide between the two lovers and their respective families. ... Their families on the other hand, live in a world of deep hatred and violence. ... Similarly the values love, loyalty, justice and order are eternal. ...

• Word Count: 1523
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

What he does not understand fully is that the people of the World State have been conditioned from birth to hate all things important in Shakespeare's works; emotion, family, love and death. ... Love is not encouraged, rather promiscuity is socially acceptable in the World State, "everyone belongs to everyone else."" ... Love, death, family, and passion are major themes in his plays, every one of these removed from the minds of the World State citizens. ... Love is also devalued; seeing one person exclusively is the kind of thing that would give a person a bad reputation. ... No more u...

• Word Count: 1445
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The man who has most control in the activity of the two families is Mr Rock who seems to have the both in the palm of his hand. There are similarities too, however, in the two texts in the distinct hierarchy present in the structure of the opposing sides/families. They both have a controlling father figure and loyalties to the respective culture/family run deep, although in ""Romeo Must Die"" this loyalty turns out to be fake. ... The role of love and fate also vary greatly in the two texts. ... "Romeo and Juliet" opens with the prologue revealing the fate of the star-crossed lovers and the na...

• Word Count: 2531
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Following both the major plot of King Lear's family, and the parallel plot of Gloucester's family, the parental flaws of the patriarch's King Lear and Gloucester become evident, becoming the catalysts to the domestic anarchy to follow. ... However, the domestic anarchy that is to follow would not have been perceived as only because of Lear's actions to those who valued family unity but rather as a result of family interaction. ... This is further highlighted in the irony in "I gave you all" in reference to the division of the kingdom, demonstrating the Jacobean&#x...

• Word Count: 1414
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

He did it because he was aware that he would not be able to ascend the throne unless his three elder brothers, including Edward IV who was the eldest and the sitting King of England, George and Duke of Clarence in the York royal family are eliminated. ... This was clearly indicated at the beginning of the play when he said that he had hatched fiendish plots through drunken prophecies and dreams to set his brother George and the king in deadly hate against each other (1.1.32-35) to initiate a family feud, which would subsequently prevent George of Clarence from being a potential successor to th...

• Word Count: 4910
• Approx Pages: 20
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

We realise that this marriage is more than one of mutual love and support; it is not only a new political alliance, but also an exchange of patriarchal power. ... The preservation of a woman's virginity is a recurring theme in Shakespeare's plays; in A Midsummer Night's Dream, we see Helena make known her love for Demetrius, which of itself is a measure executed almost exclusively by men. Whilst she is proclaiming her love, albeit in an unfashionable manner, Demetrius' terse response is that she ought take care as to not lose "the rich worth of [her] virginity" in...

• Word Count: 2000
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Set in eleventh century Scotland, we are confronted with a society where one's family lineage and capacity as a military combatant determines one's status. ... Thus, the collapse of trust and love between Lady Macbeth and Macbeth is the cause of the tragedy within the play, making Lady Macbeth responsible. ...

• Word Count: 882
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: Undergraduate