King Lear Rhetorical Analysis Essay

Shout It To The Heavens We, as the audience, can tell that King Lear is full of anger which he directs towards his eldest daughters because of the way they have treated him. He has taken verbal blows from each of his eldest daughters which have caused what was left of his sanity to be destroyed. Lear seemed a bit senile in the first place, but the mistreatment by his daughters removed the final ounce of sanity he had left. We can clearly see and examine this by the way he shouts at the raging storm: Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!/Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters.(3.2.16-17) Lear is yelling at the storm to give him the worst it can give. He thinks that nothing else could make his life any worse since his daughters have basically disowned him and left him out in the rain. How can we tell that Lear is

Lear tells the elements that he does not tax them with unkindness. He tells them that he should not be the one getting the foul treatment, for he has not committed any wrong. He says he has not given them any kingdom or called them his children. What we understand from this is that “Lear, believes that he is more sinned against than sinning” (Skura 125). With Lear shouting out angrily towards the sky about how he’s being sinned against, we could imagine that Lear’s sanity has dwindled to the very last drop. This could be inferred because a sane person would never cry out and be angry with a storm. Despite this, Lear continues with his outlandish act of crying out towards the heavens. Lear still feels the elements owe him nothing. He feels as if his eldest daughters have sent the storm upon him to punish him for his wrongdoings. What we may not realize is that Lear is telling the storm that it owes him nothing, for he has done nothing wrong in the first place. But the storm may symbolize his daughters and he does not realize that he has insulted