“Shakespeare’s King Lear is a play of redemption in which the King moves from a state of moral blindness to one of clear vision. Evaluate this view of the play considering the King’s journey through the play.”
Shakespeare’s King Lear is a portrayed as a play of redemption and clarity for Lear’s outlook on life, however Lear may not have changed as much as most have thought. King Lear began being rash and foolish but through mental suffering and insanity he changed and grew to love his daughter Cordelia. Once Cordelia died Lear’s sanity did as well.
Lear begins the play by having no moral vision and blinded is greatly by his ego. His decision to divide and give away his kingdom was hastily made and foolish. He does not realise until several
Lear realises that he has given away his power and is relying on his daughters to support him. He begins to see that their love for him was not real and he has given up his kingdom only to be left alone and powerless. Lear becomes enraged when his number of men he is allowed is lowered and even more so when his daughters say that he needs none. In Lear’s rage, he curses his daughters, and storm out of the castle into the storm, when he is then locked out. While he is leaving Lear yells “Blow winds…rage! Blow!” (III.ii.1). This is Lear’s final attempt to regain control. He has lost everything. While out in the storm in Act III scene iv, King Lear meets Poor Tom, a mad, naked beggar (Edgar). However when Lear hears his delusional speeches he mistakes Tom for a wise man. Josephine Waters Bennett said “He is the king, thinking charitably of others, and then, suddenly, one of those “wretches”, Edgar disguised as Tom o’Bedlam, appears, and Lear, just controlling his own sanity by thinking of others, suddenly confuses the Bedlam beggar with himself, and he is over the brink.” in ‘The Storm Within: the Madness of Lear’ - Page 140. Lear sees Tom and is moved by him, he relates to him and strips himself of his cloaks and clothing to run around mad with Tom. This is where it is believed that Lear does truly go
Amy said “When I was younger, I felt a terrible shock at Cordelia’s death. It seemed so inappropriate, so unexpectedly gratuitous. Why did she, the most innocent, have to die for the sins of her father? Now her death no longer seems gratuitous, but at the very centre of the tragedy. There would be no tragedy if Cordelia didn’t die.” In Norman N. Holland’s paper ‘Transactive Teaching: Cordelia's Death’ - Page 278. Cordelia’s death in the play tested Lear’s sanity and his transformation. Is it possible that Lear hadn’t changed as much as it seemed, that at the root of everything he remained to be the same ignorant, foolish man? After Cordelia dies Lear comes out carrying her in his arms. The first lines he speaks after bringing her in he absorbed in her death, he pays no attention to anyone else. He says “Never, never, never, never, never./ Pray you undo this button. Thank you, sir./ Do you see this? Look on her! Look, her lips!/ Look there! Look there!” (V.iii.306-309). This is a similar behaviour to the beginning of the play, Lear is refusing to see the reality of any situation and only see what he wants. Lear wants Cordelia to be alive more than anything else. He wants to believe this so strongly he convinces himself that she still moves, that she is still alive even after he has carried her lifeless body in his arms. Lear behaves irrationally
I think it is pretty evident that the relationships that King Lear had with each of his daughters were completely different from one another. In the end, although they went through some rough times, Cordelia still remained his favorite daughter. I think this play is not only a good display of different father daughter relationship but also, it can be taken as lesson learned. It can teach people that pretending just to get your way won’t get you far.
But instead he got punished for it. As the play progressed, Lear slowly came to a clear vision. He realized that his two eldest daughter did not truly love him after they locked him out of the castle during a tremendous storm. He also finally saw through that Cordelia’s love for him was so tremendous that she was not able to put it into words. Unfortunately, his blindness caused the dearth of Cordelia and his own.
King Lear's hot temper and hasty decisions play a significant role in his fall from grace. His old age has caused him to behave impulsively, without any consideration for the consequences of his actions. When Lear asks his devoted daughter Cordelia to express her love for him, he becomes upset with her because she cannot put her feelings into words. He does not realize that she cares deeply for him and disowns her by saying, "Here I disclaim all my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee from this for ever (1.1.120-123)." It is only later, when Cordelia has left him, that Lear realizes he had made a wrong decision. In another fit of rage, Lear ...
King Lear is often regarded as one of Shakespeare’s finest pieces of literature. One reason this is true is because Shakespeare singlehandedly shows the reader what the human condition looks like as the play unfolds. Shakespeare lets the reader watch this develop in Lear’s own decisions and search for the purpose of life while unable to escape his solitude and ultimately his own death. Examining the philosophies Shakespeare embeds into the language and actions of King Lear allows the reader a better understanding of the play and why the play is important to life today.
When the audience is first introduced to Lear, he is portrayed as a raging, vain old man who can not see the purity of his daughter Cordelia's love for him from the insincerity of her sisters Goneril and Regan. In his fiery rage after disowning Cordelia, Lear commands to Kent, "Out of my sight!" (1.1.156). Kent fittingly implores the aging king to "See better, Lear; and let me still remain / The true blank of thine eye" (1.1.157-8). Kent recognizes love in its most noble form in the person of Cordelia, and is able to see through the hypocrisy of Lear's other two daughters. In beseeching Lear to "[s]ee better," Kent is, in effect, asking Lear to look beyond his vanity and inward pride to see the honesty of Cordelia, who refuses...
In King Lear by William Shakespeare, Shakespeare recounts the tragedy of King Lear as he fails to acknowledge his tragic flaw and thus falls into tragedy and unintentionally brings others with him. Throughout the play, tragedy befalls undeserving people and they suffer greatly even though they have not done anything to deserve their suffering. Although Gloucester, Edgar, and Cordelia all live happy lives at the beginning of the play, they experience great suffering despite their inner goodness, a fact that highlights Shakespeare’s belief about the blindness of a justice that does not necessarily strike only the wicked.
Through Lear, Shakespeare expertly portrays the inevitability of human suffering. The “little nothings,” seemingly insignificant choices that Lear makes over the course of the play, inevitably evolve into unstoppable forces that change Lear’s life for the worse. He falls for Goneril’s and Regan’s flattery and his pride turns him away from Cordelia’s unembellished affection. He is constantly advised by Kent and the Fool to avoid such choices, but his stubborn hubris prevents him from seeing the wisdom hidden in the Fool’s words: “Prithee, tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to: he will not believe a fool” (Shakespeare 21). This leads to Lear’s eventual “unburdening,” as foreshadowed in Act I. This unburdening is exacerbated by his failure to recognize and learn from his initial mistakes until it is too late. Lear’s lack of recognition is, in part, explained by his belief in a predestined life controlled completely by the gods: “It is the stars, the stars above us govern our conditions” (Shakespeare 101). The elder characters in King Lear pin their various sufferings on the will of...
undergoes a redeeming reversal of character. Lear slowly starts to go mad, Lear. O, let me not be mad,
The first stage of Lear’s transformation is resentment. At the start of the play it is made quite clear that Lear is a proud, impulsive, hot-tempered old man. He is so self-centered that he simply cannot fathom being criticized. The strength of Lear’s ego becomes evident in the brutal images with which he expresses his anger towards Cordelia: “The barbarous Scythian,/Or he that makes his generation messes/To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom/Be as well neighboured, pitied, and relieved,/As thou may sometime daughter.” (1.1.118-122). The powerful language that Lear uses to describe his intense hatred towards Cordelia is so incommensurable to the cause, that there can be only one explanation: Lear is so passionately wrapped up in his own particular self-image, that he simply cannot comprehend any viewpoint (regarding himself) that differs from his own (no matter how politely framed). It is this anger and resentment that sets Lear’s suffering and ultimate purification in motion.
Lear is estranged from his kingdom and friends, causing his loss of sanity. In the midst of Lear's self-pity he is discovered by the fool. Fittingly enough the fool is the one able to lead Lear back to the normal world. He is made to appreciate the people who truly cared about him from the beginning. He sees that they were right all along, and repents from his foolish decision, though it's too late to do him any good.
Later in the story Lear’s ego gets the best of him and he starts to lash out at certain characters. Later in the play Lears actions turn into consequences when dealing with Goneril He tells Reagan, “tis not thee to grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train…”
King Lear is one of Shakespeare's more complex plays and within it many different themes are addressed and explored. King Lear is the somewhat unfortunate vehicle that Shakespeare uses to explore many of these themes creating a complex character including the roles of a father, king, friend and adversary.
Although King Lear is an estimable monarch, as revealed by the devotion of men such as Kent, he has serious character flaws. His power as king has encouraged him to be proud and impulsive, and his oldest daughters Regan and Goneril reflect that "The best and soundest of his time hath been but rash..." and that "he hath ever but slenderly known himself" (1.1.297-298, 295-296). When Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan in order to have less responsibility in his old age, he creates a situation in which his eldest daughters gain authority over him and mistreat him. Lear is unable to cope with his loss of power and descends into madness. While the circumstances in which Lear finds himself are instrumental in the unfolding of this tragedy, it is ultimately not the circumstances themselves, but King Lear's rash reactions to them that lead to his downfall. In this downfall, Lear is forced to come to terms with himself as a mortal man.
Lear's vision is marred by lack of direction in life, poor foresight and his inability to predict the consequences of his actions. He cannot look far enough into the future to see the consequences of his actions. This, in addition to his lack of insight into other people, condemns his relationship with his most beloved daughter, Cordelia. When Lear asks his daughters, who loves him most, he already thinks that Cordelia has the most love for him. However, when Cordelia says: "I love your Majesty according to my bond, no more nor less." (I, i, 94-95) Lear cannot see what these words really mean. Goneril and Regan are only putting on an act. They do not truly love Lear as much as they should. When Cordelia says these words, she has seen her sister's facade, and she does not want to associate her true love with their false love. Lear, however, is fooled by Goneril and Regan into thinking that they love him, while Cordelia does not. This is when Lear first shows a sign of becoming blind to those around him. He snaps and disowns her:
Overall, while King Lear is able to fit many of the criteria of a tragic figure, such as being arrogant and noble, and also being responsible for his own downfall that leads to his own catastrophic end, he does not execute being a tragic figure well as he is missing the ability to draw pity from those following his story. Through Lear’s careless distribution of land, and the disowning and disrespect of Cordelia, Kent and the fool and the fact that he never understands and is remorseful for the tragedies that he caused, he is unable to become the true tragic figure he could have been. If King Lear had been able to make a change along the way and think about his actions and treatments of people, he would have been able to cause people to feel pity for him, which would have made him William Shakespeare’s greatest tragic figure.