Divine Justice In King Lear And Antigone

In and around 441 BC, the idea of divine law/justice was called into question, when in the works of “Antigone” she battles Creon to establish a predominant theme of God versus man. During the Elizabethan era/Pre-Christian world, divine justice was a major concept in “King Lear” because religion played a substantial role in everyday life. Divine justice is would direct people into believing that all the questions they have in life, the higher power had all the answers, and that good would triumph over evil. In the works of “King Lear” and “Antigone” divine justice is just a thought and a wrong one at that. Good does not triumph over evil throughout any of the novels especially without the honorable characters suffering some terrible loss. Furthermore, many of the righteous characters in “King Lear” and “Antigone” die at the end of the novels – Lear, Gloucester,

Even though the evil characters are also dead, they deserve the punishment upon them. The death of these virtuous characters exemplifies that the presence of a “just and involved God” does not exist in a world where “nothing really matters” (Hermesmann, 4). The character’s actions in both works prove futile because tragedy transpires upon them; Cordelia and Antigone lose their life, Lear his kingdom and family, and Gloucester loses his sight. This human cruelty contributes to the scrutiny of an unjust world.
Specifically, in the works of “King Lear”, the backwards social order demonstrates the absence of divine justice. Gloucester speaks about how the concepts of right and wrong and their consequences of each are nonexistent. By him declaring how “love cools, friendship falls off”, the “bond cracked, twixt son and father” and the “in cities, mutinies, are in discord” (Shakespeare, I.ii.111-119). The disownment of Cordelia by King Lear uprooted this discord, Gloucester’s