How did it go?! For me I thought the questions they gave us were really good, especially the Assassins Creed and Tide ones lol. I did underperform in the unseen video, but other than that I’m very happy with the paper. Thank GOD formation didn’t show up 😭😭.
So basically I have an A Level English Literature exam today at 9:00 am. My plan was to get around 6 hours of sleep and wake up at 6:00 am, but I guess god just felt quirky today and thus made me wake up at 4:30 today. I think its too late to go back to bed and get more sleep, so what should I do now? Should I just drink some coffee (im not a fan of the beverage) and just cram in as much revision as possible?
Look, I just want to get a C in aqa Literature B. If this question I did is high band 3, that would be nice to know. Any adive on how to improve would be greatly appreciated.
“Edgar’s journey in King Lear is ultimately one of moral and emotional growth.”
Shakespeare absolutely uses Edgar’s to showcase a rare case of a character improving himself in a tragic text, with ‘legitimate Edgar’ in the beginning being set up as someone who is a stark contrast to the ending. The fact that Edgar blindly believes his brother’s words that some ‘villain’ have done him ‘wrong’ demonstrates the copious amounts of loyalty he has within his family. With how this prose mainly shows characters lying with their ‘tongue’ into obtaining power and how they always keep an ‘eye’ on their company, Shakespeare here establishes Edgar to be the opposite with his loyalty and honest shock in his brother’s word, an ironic decision since it is his brother that is the ‘villain’ that leads to Edgar’s peripetia. It could be interpreted that by making Edgar seem so gullible, it shows how he is a direct parallel to his father Gloucester, a man’s whose mentally is so blind in its decision making that it causes him to physically have his ‘case of eyes’ gouched out as a means of karma, almost like if Edgar’s does not ultimately grow throughout his journey, he would have ended up the same as a his father.
In order to make his ultimate growth seem more ‘emotional’, Shakespeare makes Edgar go through the gruelling process of becoming ‘poor tom, I nothing am’, a completely opposite figure to the upper-class man he was. This caricature of a poor person is almost comical in how far his supposed madness goes, as in most stage productions he wears close to nothing while being covered in ‘dirt’, accentuating his dirtiness as tom cannot acquire proper health care, whole Edgar himself changes the inflection and tone of his voice to be high pitched at all times. By making Edgar go down to near the bottom of the Jacobean ‘right of kings’ order, it makes the audience of time understand truly how far Edgar had now fallen, since the poor were often seen as ‘poor naked wretches’ by society. And due to how he shares the stage in act 3 with Lear, a man whose ‘mind’ has become so foolish and lost that he thinks he can command ‘earth, wind, fire’, it becomes clear that Shakespeare wants us to see these two tragic hero as going suffering madmen. It could be interpreted as well that this show Edgar actually as a character who regresses in his journey rather than moral and emotionally grow. However, not only is this ‘poor tom’ performance within a performance merely just a means of survival from his father’s army, but also it is this act that Edgar emotionally understands how ‘plain and portable’ his pain is compared to the former king, therefore making this moment in scene 6 his anagnorisis, a point made more evident with how he is characterized during the climax of this play.
Edgar in act 4 and 5 specifically is a complete contrast to the gullible and lost character he was when he was first set up in his journey, as it is here that he gains agency and the power to take on his ‘villain’ of a brother. The fact that act 4 starts with Edgar lamenting that ‘the worst is not when can say “this is the worst”’ is Shakespeare painting the character’s emotionally growth in how he now understands life is a more nuanced way, showing how much, he has matured. But also, it is this scene that shows Edgar’s first meeting with Gloucester since he hath been blinded, and their conversation in the play as a whole, an intentional structural choice from Shakespeare in order to show the growth of these characters. Because while Gloucester’s new found nihilism causes to use animalistic language to blame the ‘gods’ for how human are just mere ‘flies’, it is Edgar that tell his father, albeit in another disguise, that ‘the gods are just’, as if the paths that are set out for us, even if cruel, are still right path for us. It is Edgar’s optimism here that demonstrates the qualities of good nature he had in act 1, but that they are now ironed out to show his moral growth as a human, an emotional development that causes the audience to have pathos for him. This sense of newfound agency is continued into his growth as a warrior, a convention in tragic texts where those with physical strength are usually those with power. Edgar killing Oswald in act 4 scene 6 shows his new found bravery, and his disguise in act 5 scene 1 is another showcase of emotional growth as he gives Abalny the letter that denotes Edgar’s ‘darker purpose’ an event that causes a domino effect that leads to the deadly clash between Edgar and Edmund. It is cathartic to see Edgar finally gain revenge on the ‘traitor’ that caused him to have this emotional and moral journey; the legitimate brother is shown as besting his brother in terms of strength but also mentality. And it is Edgar that delivers the final line (in most versions) of the play, asking those around him on stage to ‘speak what we feel, not what we ought to say’, he is encouraging those to have honest nature, as so the new kingdom can ‘never’ succumb to same mistakes the dead Lear made, leaving the play on a hopeful note while showing how Edgar’s journey is an emotional and moral story of growth. Given the recurring theme of Edgar being a stark contrast to the other character’s beliefs, such as Gloucester’s nihilism and Edgar’s deception, it perhaps means that Edgar is the true hero of the story, given how he is a disruption to the misery that Shakespeare writes for this play.
Hello there, this is a question I have towards teachers in the UK. I am a year 13 student who is about to finish their A levels, and recently I have had this realization that I would not mind becoming a Media Studies teacher. This is mainly due to how Media is my favourite subject and the one that im getting the highest grades, but also due to how just generally enjoy being in the classroom and dicussing media texts and theories. It has made me think that being a teacher for either secondary school or college for media would be quite benifical to me, so I am just wondering what I should do if I want to pursue this dream (for example what certificates should I get or if there are any voluntering opurtunities out there). Any advice on this matter would be greatly appreciated!
I am an AQA Literature B student and this is my reponse to the section A question from 2021 for King Lear. Right now, I am working towards a B grade so I am wondering if this question I did falls in line with band 3 or band 4, any quick notes on it would be greatly appreciated! I have put the extract bellow the question:
Explore the significance of this extract in relation to the tragedy of the play as a whole. Remember to include in your answer relevant analysis of Shakespeare’s dramatic methods.
The extract opens with dramatic tension as the three blows of the ‘trumpet’ build up to the reveal that Edgar will face off against his illegitimate brother Edgar in a climactic showdown to the death. Edgar throughout the whole play thought he was ‘sure’ to trust his brother, but after having just read the letter that Albany is to be executed under the commands of Edmund, it becomes clear that is innocent like trust was for naught and that he must now take the responsibility of taking down Edmund. Given in how the extract takes place in the final act and scene of this tragic play, Shakespeare makes it so that the falling action of this climax is that of tragedy, with the audience being led on to believe this battle with bring a happy ending, only for their dreams to die in a similar vein to Edmund himself.
Given how the ‘armed’ and masked man is usually portrayed as having a slow gait onto the stage of battle in most productions, it creates a feeling of suspense that flows into catharsis when he declares his ‘name is lost’, with the irony of this being that the audience is able to identity that this is indeed Edgar just based on the voice. Shakespeare, in a play full of nihilism, makes the audience almost feel excitement that Edgar has become so ‘noble’ that he is willing to fight and bring his own brother to just, giving us hope that the play will make the audience feel like that them seeing the ‘worst’ in humans will indeed have a satisfactory ending. Edgar confidence to take on the new ‘Gloucester’ of this fractured kingdom is all the more cathartic given it is a stark contrast to how Edgar, or more specifically ‘poor tom’ had been portrayed by Shakespeare. It is because of his brother deceitful nature that Edgar had been forced to be one of the ‘poor naked wretches’ that the foolish Lear relates to, a real showcase of his Catastrophe, further exemplified by him having to combat his dying father’s nihilistic views that we are just ‘wanton flies’ to the gods that torture us, because in his mind the ‘just’ gods has made it so that ‘ripeness is all’ and that death will come for us, a foreshadowing to how he will deliver Edmund’s death. The cathartic nature in this comes in how the whole play has built up to Edgar’s character growth, there is no cyclical structure in how he was portrayed earlier in the play and instead that he is embraced his identify as a man with no ‘name’, and instead uses his experience to defeat his ‘adversary’. By this point, it would expected of any play that Edgar’s battle with the ‘traitor’ would be a satisfactory end to the play, however Shakespeare instead adheres to Aristotle’s views on Tragedy and robs both the audience and Edgar of a cathartic ending. Because not only after Edmund ‘falls’ that it is revealed that Goneril kills herself after seeing her lover lost in combat, but also that we see Edmund’s anagnorisis that he was ‘loved’ and instead could have prevented his demise had he continued to give passion to both his then loyal brother and to the two women who loved him. The conventions of tragic texts are conformed to by how catharsis is robbed from us, something that this extract is able to show here.
What makes the extract all the more significant is how Edmund’s confident body language, (with a smile even on his face in productions such as the 2018 BBC version of the play) are supposed to play up his motif that his karma had been long over-due, and that it is this scene that finally wipes away his confidence and makes him endure his tragic fall. As a Machiavel villain throughout the whole play before this extract, we have seen a parelell to Edgar’s own growth with Edmund own rise to power, only with his it is with a ‘darker purpose’ in a manner that upsets the natural order. Edmund’s pent up emotions of enragement after being defined his illegitimate ‘nature’ despite his ‘shape being well compact’ has been all due to his father’s Gloucester, so Shakespeare throughout the play has made us understand but still resent Edmund by how he has grown to becomes so conniving despite his intentions giving him pathos; he now finally is given the status of power that he had been denied his whole life. And due to how Shakespeare could be using this play as a didactic allegory to Jacobean audience that upsetting the great chain of being will give you harsh consequences, it is in this extract that Edmund is given his fall from grace and is indeed stripped of his title ‘earl of Gloucester’, with this name of his alone being an indicator of how his bloodshed has irreparably altered the kingdom for the worse that the natural Gloucester is now dead. Edmund’s hubris in this extract is so extensive he forgets ‘wisdom’ and doesn't even ask his adversaries name and instead judges his appearance rather than reality, an ironic indicator into has far he has fallen given how soliloquy in act 1 scene 2 was to criticise judging ‘base’ and not his actual nature. And it all of these factors that leads to the villain of this story meeting his end, a convention of tragic text that had tragically been a long time coming, making the audience wonder that had his father given him the slightest bit of love, this whole debacle would have never existed.
A trumpet sounds
HERALD (reading) If any man of quality or degree within the
lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed
Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold traitor, let him
appear by the third sound of the trumpet. He is bold in his
defence.
(First trumpet)
Again!
(Second trumpet)
Again!
Third trumpet
Trumpet answers within. Enter Edgar armed, a
trumpet before him
ALBANY
Ask him his purposes, why he appears
Upon this call o’the trumpet.
HERALD What are you?
Your name, your quality, and why you answer
This present summons?
EDGAR Know, my name is lost,
By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit;
Yet am I noble as the adversary
I come to cope.
ALBANY Which is that adversary?
EDGAR
What’s he that speaks for Edmund, Earl of Gloucester?
EDMUND
Himself. What sayest thou to him?
EDGAR Draw thy sword,
That if my speech offend a noble heart
Thy arm may do thee justice. Here is mine.
He draws his sword
Behold; it is the privilege of mine honours,
My oath, and my profession. I protest,
Maugre thy strength, place, youth, and eminence,
Despite thy victor sword and fire-new fortune,
Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor,
False to thy gods, thy brother, and thy father,
Conspirant ’gainst this high illustrious prince,
And, from th’extremest upward of thy head
To the descent and dust below thy foot,
A most toad-spotted traitor. Say thou ‘no’,
This sword, this arm, and my best spirits are bent
To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak,
Thou liest.
EDMUND In wisdom I should ask thy name;
But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike
And that thy tongue some ’say of breeding breathes,
What safe and nicely I might well delay
By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.
Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,
With the hell-hated lie o’erwhelm thy heart,
Which, for they yet glance by and scarcely bruise,
This sword of mine shall give them instant way
Where they shall rest for ever. Trumpets, speak!
Alarums. Fights. Edmund falls
I do really want to play this game, but I am worried that my PC does not have the required specs that are needed to play the game. My specs are as follows:
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-8350U CPU @ 1.70GHz (1.90 GHz)
Installed RAM 16.0 GB (15.9 GB usable)
Graphics card Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620 (128 MB)
Storage 132 GB of 238 GB used
System type 64-bit operating system, x64-based processor
It is a Windows 11 pro with a 'Intel(R) UHD Graphics 620' graphics card.