Compose an argument for or against the topic:
             'That every text has its use by date'.
             Shakespeare's King Lear is a play which carries universal literary qualities: the themes, the structure and the language. It is a play filled with a mixture of complexities and ambiguities, and deals with an ever so clear story line where it is almost fairy tale like – a father who has 3 daughters decides one day to split up his kingdom but wants to know how much they love him... and so on. The text is structured in such several ways such as the decent from order to chaos, the two paralleling plots of Lear and his three daughters and Gloucester and his two sons, the contrasting of themes of appearance and reality and also good vs. evil. The story line could be produced and represented in so many differing perspectives. It could be turned into totally juxtaposing interpretations yet still carry just as much meaning. Due to this, it can prove that every text does not have a use by date.
             In 1971, Peter Brook decided to direct King Lear as a film, after his successful absurdist interpretation as a play in 1962. This film was framed in a nihilist interpretation after Brook decided to use Beckett's (an absurdist) adage: "There is nothing to express, nothing with which to express, nothing from which to express....together with the obligation to express". The basis of this nihilist reading is a feudal society that descends into a nihilistic world. It could be said that the division of the kingdom by Lear is a metaphor for the division of a strict feudal system. The behaviour of Regan and Gonerill stripping Lear of his knights and possessions were the cause for the house of cards to fall down and the highest powers reduced to the lowest of the low.
             Brook's use of black and white film is the start of emphasising this particular nihilist meaning. By using black and white, it creates the atmosphere of bleakness su...