Hi!,
i am trying to find the best literary device to use for detailing how in the Shakespearean play “King Lear” Edgar “Modifies” the truth while retelling a series of events. He does so by totally switching the details around and making up details so that the story favors him. The quote I am analyzing is ………….
hear my father coming: pardon me:
In cunning I must draw my sword upon you
Draw; seem to defend yourself; now quit you well.
Yield: come before my father. Light, ho, here!
Fly, brother. Torches, torches! So, farewell.
Exit EDGARSome blood drawn on me would beget opinion.
Wounds his armOf my more fierce endeavor: I have seen drunkards
Do more than this in sport. Father, father!
Stop, stop! No help?
Enter GLOUCESTER, and Servants with torches
Now, Edmund, where’s the villain?
Here stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,
Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring the moon
To stand auspicious mistress,–
Persuade me to the murder of your lordship;
But that I told him, the revenging gods
‘Gainst parricides did all their thunders bend;
Spoke, with how manifold and strong a bond
The child was bound to the father; sir, in fine,
Seeing how loathly opposite I stood
To his unnatural purpose, in fell motion,
With his prepared sword, he charges home
My unprovided body, lanced mine arm:
But when he saw my best alarum’d spirits,
Bold in the quarrel’s right, roused to the encounter,
Or whether gasted by the noise I made,
Full suddenly he fled.
Please Help if you can!
Yes sure!
This is Act II, Scene I and the best literary device in this excerpt is irony. We find two types of irony, dramatic and verbal irony.
It is when the audience knows the intentions and motives of Edmund, however characters within this play are unaware of his reality.
Glouchester considers Edmund is behaving “naturally,” whereas Emund describes the purpose of Edgar as “unnatural.” Here this word “natural” also means “illegitimate,” thus Glouchester is in fact implying that his illegitimate son, Edmund is more natural and pure love for his father than his legitimate son, Edgar.