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As Lear finds himself in the abandoned wasteland that is Act 3 Scene 2, a terrible storm that is symbolic in more ways than one, rages overhead. In part, the storm reflects Lear’s inner turmoil and mounting madness, it is also a physical and turbulent reflection of his internal confusion. At the same time the storm embodies the awesome power of nature which forces the powerless king to recognise his own mortality and human frailty and also gives him a humbling experience for the first time. The storm may also symbolise some kind of overall justice, as if nature is angry about the events that have happened so far in the play. Finally, the extreme chaos that takes place also symbolises the political disarray that has engulfed Lear’s Britain. The first line of Act 3 Scene2 starts of with Lear shouting towards the heavens: “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow.” What Shakespeare is doing here is using personification to give you the image of personified clouds blowing with their cheeks puffed out. Lear’s tone is very harsh and powerful, “Blow, Crack, Rage” he bellows, Lear is not here for a peaceful walk in the rain he wants to face the worst because he feels that any thing nature can do to him cannot be any worse than what his daughters have put him through already. “Your cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulph’rous and thought-executing fires,” By this stage Lear has reached his height of anger, he feels that he has been dealt with unfairly so any thing that is happening too him should also be happening to the rest of the world. He shouts in commanding words towards the sky to flood everything so much to cover the tops of the buildings and further on to “Strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world,” Lear is telling the storm to flatten the entire word just like it has done to him.
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