King Lear 5
Study Guide Questions for Act II, Scenes III-IV
If you are looking for the beginning of the study for Shakespeare’s “King Lear” then you can go HERE for a brief introduction. At the bottom of the introduction you will find the links to each section of the study guide as it becomes available. If you would like to see the growing list of book studies available for free on this site you can go HERE. Enjoy!
Virtues/Vices/Great Ideas: (Find them in the Text)
Appearance vs. Reality, Recklessness, Fortune, Maxim, Loyalty
Grammar Questions: (The Information of the Text)
How did Edgar manage to escape the manhunt that was pursuing him?
What plan did Edgar come up with in order to remain uncaptured long term?
What was King Lear’s overall reaction to finding Kent in the stocks?
What did the Duke of Cornwall and Regan initially do when Lear attempted to see them?
How did Regan react to King Lear’s claims about her sister, Goneril, and how she had mistreated him?
Who comes to meet with Regan and Cornwall as King Lear is decrying the wicked behavior of Goneril?
What did Lear say he would rather do than return to Goneril with “fifty men dismiss’d?”
What reason(s) did Regan and Goneril give for why Lear had no need of so many (or any) men to serve him?
What is the situation of King Lear at the end of this reading?
Logic Questions: (Interpreting, Comparing/Contrasting, Reasoning)
In what ways are Kent’s and Edgar’s situations similar and in what ways are they different?
Kent admitted to King Lear that he had acted with “more man than wit about” him. Of what vice might this be a good description?
The Fool said, “Fortune, that arrant whore, Ne’er turns the key to the poor.” What did he mean by that?
What did the Fool mean when he told Kent, “Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill, lest it break thy neck with following it; but the great one that goes up the hill, let him draw thee after?”
Why might King Lear have been reticent (hesitant) to quickly believe that Regan and Cornwall were intentionally slighting (disrespecting) him?
What is most likely the real reason why Goneril and Regan are so eager to take away King Lear’s men?
What did Lear mean when he said, “O, reason not the need: our basest beggars are in the poorest thing superfluous: Allow not nature more than nature needs, man’s life’s as cheap as beast’s: thou art a lady; if only to go warm were gorgeous, why, nature needs not what thou gorgeous wear’st, which scarcely keeps thee warm?”
What did Lear mean by referring to “women’s weapons” as “water drops?” How are these feminine weapons?
Why might Shakespeare have had a storm begin as King Lear makes his final speech of this Act?
What did Regan mean when she said “O, sir, to wilful men the injuries that they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters?”
Rhetoric Questions: (The Analysis of Ideas in the Text)
The Fool discusses the concept of Loyalty when he says, “That sir which serves and seeks for gain, and follows but for form, will pack when it begins to rain, and leave thee in the storm. But I will tarry; the fool will stay, and let the wise man fly: The knave turns fool that runs away; the fool no knave, perdy.” To whom do we owe loyalty? Are loyalties a product of nature or contract or something else? To what extent should loyalties be maintained? Stated negatively, when, if ever, should a loyalty be dissolved? Explain your answer thoroughly.
Theological Analysis: (Sola Scriptura)
Read Proverbs 6:6-8, which the Fool refers to when speaking with Kent. In what way does this relate to Kent’s situation in service to King Lear?
Read Mark 3:24-25. How does this relate to our present reading and King Lear’s situation with his daughters?
Read Luke 6:46-49. How might we relate this passage of Scripture to King Lear and his daughters?