“The Eye of the Tiger”: Symbolism of Competitive Animals in King Lear Anonymous 12th Grade

Frank Chodorovm, an acclaimed libertarian politician, asserted after the Civil War, “The States acquire power…and because of their insatiable lust for power they are incapable of giving up any of it.” Chodorovm suggests that the reason the Civil War occurred was the inherent power struggle between the North and the South, and the “insatiable lust for power” led the States to turn against themselves. This power struggle echoes the conflict in Shakespeare’s King Lear, in which Lear’s daughters vie for the throne of Britain, even if it meant brutally turning against family members. Shakespeare employs animal imagery to symbolize the brutally competitive nature of Goneril and Regan, who first turn against their father, and subsequently against themselves, in their treacherous quest for power. Shakespeare recurrently utilizes references to savage creatures to exposé the contentious relationship between King Lear and his daughters Goneril and Regan, who rapaciously long to take control of their father’s power.

In the first act, the fool astutely claims to Lear, “the hedge sparrow fed the cuckoo so long / That it had its head bitten off by its young” (1.4.212). The hedge sparrow and cuckoo refer, respectively, to King Lear and the...