"The Stone Angel" and "King Lear"

Paper Summary:

The paper illustrates how in both "The Stone Angel" by Margaret Laurence and "King Lear" by William Shakespeare, the main characters do not accept the process of aging and cannot let go of their vanity and pride. The paper shows how because of their pride, both Hagar and King Lear are ostracized from their families and experience their downfall.

From the Paper:

"King Lear also lets his pride and vanity lead him into his own purgatory. Devoid of family, and lost of riches, he remains chronically swathed in his lacquered pursuit of conceit, he speaks with contempt towards Oswald, "This is a slave, whose easy-borrowed pride Dwells in the fickle grace of her he follows. Out, varlet, from my sight!" (II.4.1476). In the heat of the moment, when he is trying to split his kingdom between his daughters he finds that he must be loved utterly. It is his pride that doesn't permit him to see how lovingly he is already kept within his daughters' hearts. Just as Hagar refused to believe in true love, so does King Lear refuse it, both because pride makes them doubt."

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