King Lear

meli77

16

What is the significance of the motif of nothing? How do I analyse it?

Hi! I think this is a difficult one to get your head around at first but perhaps it would help if you think about what is meant by 'nothing'. Try thinking about it in terms of loss - who has or ends up with 'nothing' in King Lear? You could also look at it in terms of emptiness - two characters in particular are known for their 'empty words' - words that mean nothing. Does that help?

Reply 2

meli77

OP

16

Original post by Pwca

Hi! I think this is a difficult one to get your head around at first but perhaps it would help if you think about what is meant by 'nothing'. Try thinking about it in terms of loss - who has or ends up with 'nothing' in King Lear? You could also look at it in terms of emptiness - two characters in particular are known for their 'empty words' - words that mean nothing. Does that help?

Hi, thank you so much for your reply. Still not sure how I can analyse the motif.

Original post by meli77

Hi, thank you so much for your reply. Still not sure how I can analyse the motif.

The key things to remember are that a motif is recurring theme throughout the text (so you'll see it comes up again and again), and it reinforces the overall message of the text. So if I were you, I'd start by seeing how many examples of the motif I could find. Once you've done that you'll have something concrete to work with and you can start looking at how the motif symbolically reinforces the central message of the text.

What other texts are you studying this year or have you studied before?

King Lear

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