King Lear Disguises Analysis

In King Lear, two characters choose to place disguises on themselves in order to play a role in reinforcing the main theme of justice in the play. The disguises play focus on the specific goals of Edgar and Kent to be fulfilled; Edgar wants to prove himself, and Kent wants to restore King Lear’s faith in him. Edgar becomes Poor Tom, and uses that persona to “take the basest and more poorest shape/That ever penury in contempt of man/ Brought near to beast” (2.3.7-9) simply to protect himself and build sympathy from others who will see him as a poor beggar boy. The primary reason Kent has for disguising himself as Caius is explained by his devotion to Lear. As Lear’s advisor, Kent has proven himself to be faithful and show that he has genuine concern for his King, even after Lear has banished him. Instead of plotting revenge on Lear, Kent uses his exile to better serve Lear because of his skill at “other accents borrow,/That can [his] speech diffuse, [his] good intent/May carry through itself to that full issue/For which [he] razed [his] likeness” (1.4.1-4). This continuous loyalty Kent has for Lear is not only painstakingly obvious to the audience, but is an example of pathos as Kent only demonstrates over again that he is devoted to Lear, and yet Lear refuses to acknowledge this. Kent uses his disguise not for personal gain as Edgar does, but to show the audience (and Lear) that he is a genuinely good human being, and he will do what he must for his King.

Edgar feels persecuted by his bastard brother Edmund, and is exiled into the status of a lower class man, when Edmund reveals Edgar’s true nature to their father Gloucester. In Act Two, the audience feels sympathetic towards Edgar’s treatment by Edmund who wounds himself with h...

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... reflect his change, which is notable as he says: “Every man look o’er/ his part. For the short and the long is, our play is preferred” (4.2.18-19). Here, Bottom shows that he is finally taking the play as seriously as he should have when the Mechanicals had first sat down to rehearse. By accepting the play the way it is written, without any modifications made by himself, he is allowing the audience and his fellow actors that he has become serious about his role, and about being a better person. In William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, love is something that blossomed from the theme of disguise and deception. Even though the disguises were placed upon the characters by magic, they were still able to take those experiences and learn how to develop and grow from them, which allowed them to learn how to love properly –without sight, but rather, with the mind