The Power Of Survival In Shakespeare's King Lear

What is the meaning of life when survival is not enough to live? This chaotically ever-changing ordered world throws new hurdles for people to jump over each and every day, some harder than others, and people chose to jump over them each and every time. They do not do this just to face more hurdles the next day, they do it instead for something greater than survival, like the characters in “Station Eleven” and “King Lear”. “Station Eleven” is about the survival of the human race in a world after a time of chaos and total structural collapse by Emily St. John Mandel. “King Lear” is a tragic Shakespearean play about a world turned upside down with deceit and the attempt to find order again. In both works of writing, the message that “survival is not sufficient” is unveiled from the actions and choices of various …show more content…
Such is the case with Edmond, illegitimate son of Gloucester in King Lear. He has the basic necessities to stay alive from food to shelter but that is not enough for him to live each day fulfillingly. Because he was conceived out of wedlock, he is labeled as an illegitimate son and his father does not recognize him publicly; he won’t receive neither his title nor his land unlike his half-brother, Edgar. Edmund, instead of living out with the support his father provides him behind the scenes, schemes to replace Edgar and get his father to reveal him to the world as he is. According to him, he is, in a way, righting a wrong; after all, his father loves him more than the other, or so he believes: “Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land // Our father 's love is to the bastard Edmund” (Act I, Scene II). One who survives does not necessarily feel the love and approval of family, and that is all Edmund wants. He risks his assured survival for something more fulfilling, the chance to stop hiding behind a mask forced upon him by his father’s