Antitheses: King Lear and A Thousand Acres
The play King Lear and the novel A Thousand Acres can be compared and contrasted in many ways. For example, each work's plot involves a struggle over land. Both also deal with the ousting of a father figure. Another comparable element in each work is the illegitimate courting of women by a newly arrived, enigmatic son. In King Lear the son is Edmund, a bastard of the Earl of Gloucester, a son who, Gloucester admits, came "something saucily to the world before he was sent for" (KL 1.1.21-22), Gloucester still believes "the whoreson must be acknowledged" (KL 1.1.24). On the other hand, Jess Clark, one of two sons of Harold Clark, is nothing of a bastard. Rather, the absence of Jess comes from his conscious choice to leave his home to avoid the Vietnam War draft. Jess returns many years later, of his own volition. These two men, while being comparative characters, have little in common besides sharing an absence from the lives of the other characters in each respective work. These two literary figures could be fairly seen as antitheses of each other, whose differences can be seen by examining each man's circumstance, desires, and actions. First, Edmund's circumstance is a precarious one. His situation in lif
Edmund's solitary desire in life is to have power. Both seduce the main female characters. These desires are brought to light by the actions each man makes. Edmund, however, is not content with only his father's land, but desires to gain the land of the former monarchy. All in all, Jess has opportunities available to him, while Edmund has to work meticulously to create his own prospects. Yes, both men enter the story from abroad, but one man comes of his own free will, while the other is brought out. He is content to simply let life go. Edmund would have jumped on such an opportunity to sow dissention between his father and his half-brother. He wishes for stability, which for him equates to notoriety and wealth, unlike the closure and finality stability brings to Jess. However, Edmund is not satisfied with what he has, and is destroyed by his greed. He is intoxicated by the thought of having power. Still, the desire to be with a woman, or more than one woman, is pushed aside by his need for freedom.
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