Themes of the Play-Animals King Lear Themes of the Play-Animals

“Tigers not daughters” Much of the animal imagery, particularly that referring to savage creatures, is associated with: Goneril Regan The daughters possess an instinctive, animalistic evil.

‘monsters of the deep’ The sisters are also likened to fiends and monsters. Goneril is ‘sharp-toothed, like a vulture’ with a ‘wolfish visage’. Lear refers to her as a ‘detested kite’. Lear refers to Regan as looking ‘most serpent like’.

The sisters posses ‘boarish fangs’ The implications of these references is clear: Goneril and Regan are cruel predators, ‘pelican daughters’ who want to see their father bleed. Their inhumanity is reconfirmed when Gloucester and Cordelia describe how a wild beast would have been allowed shelter in the storm, but not Lear (Act III Scene 7). Appropriately, Goneril and Regan are destroyed by their animal instincts.