Psychological Power In King Lear And Of Love And Dust

Both King Lear and Of Love and Dust are stories about characters who seek power, but die because a stronger power is in their way. In both stories, two kinds of power are contrasted: physical power, or violence, and psychological power. Physical power is the kind of power people use when they’re threatening to use or are using brute force on someone else. Cornwall uses this when he blinds Gloucester in King Lear, as does Bonbon when he shoots the hawk as a threat to Marcus in Of Love and Dust. Psychological power is different. Instead of forcing someone to do something they don’t want to do, it is when they are made to want to do something they otherwise wouldn’t want to. This is racial segregation and systematic oppression in Of Love and Dust. In King Lear, it 's when Goneril and Regan lie to Lear about how much they love him, along with the formalities Edmund and Cordelia must follow. In both King Lear and Of Love and Dust, many characters seek power, but few receive it due to the kind of power they use.

Marcus, Pauline, Goneril, Regan, Cornwall, and Edmund all seek positions where they will …show more content…
In King Lear, Edmund is denied his share of Gloucester’s land for being a bastard. He thinks it isn’t fair that Edgar gets all the inheritance, while he can’t have any, so he says: “Well then, / Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land. / As to th’ legitimate. Fine word legitimate. / Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed, / And my invention thrive, Edmund the base / Shall to’ th’ legitimate. I grow, I prosper. / Now gods, stand up for bastards!” (Shakespeare, 25). Edmund doesn’t like that society says he can’t have equal the inheritance from Gloucester as Edgar, his half-brother, even though Gloucester is father to both of them. So he forges the letter to push Edgar out of the way