Year 12 IB Extended Essays 2017

becoming a parent. Particularly, Lady Macbeth’s role as a ‘barren woman’ is representative of

her cold temperament.

The bond between parent and children is instinctual, honed over the course of human evolution.

In the setting of both King Lear and Macbeth , familial connections were held in the highest

esteem. In the primary plot, Lear betrays his youngest daughter and is betrayed by his two

oldest daughters, and the natural filial relationship between father and children is destroyed by

an amalgamation of misjudgements: lack of awareness, a renunciation of ethical and natural

order, and hasty, emotional reactions. By the close of the play, the defiance of family and order

resolves in the tragic deaths of Lear and his three daughters, as well as those of supplementary

fathers and their children. In King Lear, the core theme of madness depicts the character of

Lear as becoming a deserted child, abandoned and juvenile – as Lear’s age and abdication of

power reverse his relation to his daughters and leaves him immensely dependent on them. With

Lear’s descent into madness comes the absence of paternal power, which feeds Cordelia’s

insecurity, and the ambition of Regan and particularly Goneril.

In Macbeth, the absence of paternal power encapsulates especially the character of Lady

Macbeth. Whilst Lady Macbeth’s character is initially seen as formidably manipulative and

calculating, she is unable to kill King Duncan herself, as his resemblance to “[her] father as he

slept” (Appendix 8) prevented her from committing the final act. This nostalgia reveals a more

vulnerable side of Lady Macbeth, which eventually becomes her primary mindset. The

reference to paternal power specifically also links to the lack of children, between Macbeth and

Lady Macbeth. Shakespeare implies that their inability to sire healthy offspring is a major point

of contention in their relationship, and is what may have caused the initial strain between the

two. Lady Macbeth’s infamous “I have given suck, and know” (Appendix 7) soliloquy reveals

that she was once a mother, and knows the true strength of maternal love – but her devotion to

her husband in this cause is worth defying the instinctual nature she possesses.

Extended Essay

ENGLISH A1

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