An analysis on conflicts faced by main character King Lear in William Shakespeare's King Lear

ABSTRACT

There are three branches of literary works; they are poem, prose or fiction, and drama or play. Here, drama is selected as the object of analysis. Drama is a work which is written by the author to be shown on the stage. Drama has some elements, they are; plot, character, setting, conflict, theme, etc. From, those elements the researcher selects the conflict to be analyzed. Literary works will be interesting and lifelike if there are conflicts, because they are one of the elements to develop the plot. Meanwhile, conflict itself is an opposition or disagreement between or among character or forces that motivate the plot.

This study has two problems that will be discussed; (1) what kinds of conflicts faced by the main character King Lear, and (2) how the conflicts happened. Then the purposes of this study are to know the conflicts which were faced by the main character King Lear and to describe how the conflicts happened in the story of the play.

In analyzing the conflict of the play, the researcher uses literary criticism and structural approach or called objective approach as the research design, because conflict is one of intrinsic elements of literary work. Here, the data source is the text of the play entitled The Tragedy of King Lear written by William Shakespeare. Therefore, she not only has to read the play repeatedly, identify the main and minor character and the conflicts, and find out the relevant information from the internet to collect all the data needed. But also, she has to categorize and interpret all the data in analyzing.

As the result of study, there are two conflicts which are faced by the main character King Lear in King Lear play; they are internal and external conflicts. In internal conflict, there are psychological and emotional conflicts; in this case the main character King Lear faced conflicts with himself. While in external conflict, there are social and physical conflicts; here. King Lear had conflicts with other characters. Those conflicts happened chronologically from the first act until the end and the death of King Lear.

Finally, this research is, however, still far away from being perfect. Therefore, the researcher expects to the next researchers who conduct the analysis in the same field will be better, and suggests that this play can be analyze from- other aspects. It can be intrinsic such as; theme and plot, or other characters, and extrinsic such as; sociological aspect, psychological aspect, etc.