Friday, January 21, 2005
Human & Beast
When Lear is angry, he calls his daughters all kinds of names. He likes to describe their attitudes in terms of animal behaviour. He calls Goneril ‘sea-monster’, ‘detested kite’ and Regan ‘wolvish visage’ and ‘like a vulture’.
All of these images, sea-monster, kite, vulture and wolf are of animals which eat other animals, satisfying their hunger at the expense of others. The word ‘kite’ is a new word for me. Unlike the kite we fly in the sky, it means a kind of bird of prey of the hawk family. This kind of bird is very ungrateful to its parent. As it grows up, it eats its own mother!
Animal appetite is the downfall of both Goneril and Regan. They both lust after Edmund. Their jealousy with each other leads to their death, as Goneril poisons Regan and kills herself with a knife.
This is just a play that has been written by William Shakespeare in the sixteen century. Yet we can find the similarity between human behaviour from his time and our time. Today, we hear a lot of terrorism, wars, human injustices etc. Sometimes people kill one another for no reason. Even among family ties, there is no love. I had read an article about a Tsunami victim who brought her grandson just to get the relief goods distributed only for children. After she gets the goods, she abandons her grandson.
Yes, human have behaved like brute beasts. They have no sense of morality and conscience just like Lear’s daughters. If we don’t control ourselves and the next generation, the earth will be a place for only beasts!
All of these images, sea-monster, kite, vulture and wolf are of animals which eat other animals, satisfying their hunger at the expense of others. The word ‘kite’ is a new word for me. Unlike the kite we fly in the sky, it means a kind of bird of prey of the hawk family. This kind of bird is very ungrateful to its parent. As it grows up, it eats its own mother!
Animal appetite is the downfall of both Goneril and Regan. They both lust after Edmund. Their jealousy with each other leads to their death, as Goneril poisons Regan and kills herself with a knife.
This is just a play that has been written by William Shakespeare in the sixteen century. Yet we can find the similarity between human behaviour from his time and our time. Today, we hear a lot of terrorism, wars, human injustices etc. Sometimes people kill one another for no reason. Even among family ties, there is no love. I had read an article about a Tsunami victim who brought her grandson just to get the relief goods distributed only for children. After she gets the goods, she abandons her grandson.
Yes, human have behaved like brute beasts. They have no sense of morality and conscience just like Lear’s daughters. If we don’t control ourselves and the next generation, the earth will be a place for only beasts!
# posted by Dr. Yee Bee Choo @ 7:05 AM 
