Loyalty In William Shakespeare's King Lear

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Despite Kent’s banishment and misfortunes, his love towards Lear, as proclaimed in act one, was still present and ongoing. Kent saw Lear as a father, someone who he would obey through thick and thin, proving that Kent’s loyalty was unbreakable. His trust and compassion for the king remained stable throughout the whole play. Although he was disguised as Caius for a large sum of the story, his prayers were answered and he remained as Lear’s right hand until the point of death. Once Lear died from the heart-breaking death of his daughter, Kent believed it was his time also, and decided that he must follow his master’s footsteps all the way to the grave. In contrast to Kent’s trust in the gods, and in relation to Lear’s anger towards the heavens, Gloucester believed that the celestial beings that governed the conditions of all humans caused the chaos and tribulations throughout his life. Gloucester was convinced that the heavens’ …show more content…

Elton says, in King Lear and the Gods, Gloucester’s undergoing of the immense torture brought upon him by Regan and Cornwall, points towards his “macrocosmic theology of pointlessly hostile divinities.” (153). Meaning after his eyes were gouged out, his belief in the gods were that they were cruel with absolutely no reason, which relates to his speech about the wanton boys. Elton also states that Gloucester’s expressions regarding both himself and the heavens above show a certain similarity or congruence. In the first act, Gloucester revealed himself to be rash and vengeful while he appealed blindly for the harsh retribution to the heavens, between the proclaiming regarding his adultery in the first act and his misplaced sense of shame in the second act. The ex-earl of Gloucester falsely interpreted what the intentions of the heavens were, believing that they were unjust and cruel, rather than them truly allowing the blind to see. After all the misfortunes and downfalls throughout Gloucester's life only then was he able to

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