Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
king lear,a tragic figure
king lear as a shakespeare tragedy
king lear as a shakespeare tragedy
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: king lear,a tragic figure
It is often said “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger,” and Shakespeare himself seems to agree with this old adage. In his tragedy King Lear he has many of his main characters go through an experience that takes them far out of their comfort zone to change them for the better. Throughout King Lear Shakespeare shows that man cannot be morally strong without over coming suffering.
At the beginning of the play King Lear is an old, foolish man. He is blind to the traitors all around him. Although he physically can see, he is blind to his elder two daughters’ treacherous lies of their undying love for him. He is also blind to the truth. He believes his advisor Kent and youngest daughter Cordelia are liars, when in fact they are the ones who are telling him the truth. He banishes the two people who he should have held closest telling Kent, “Turn thy hated back/ Upon our kingdom” (1.1.189-190) and Cordelia
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee, from this, for ever. (1.1.119-122)
To realize the err of his ways he must pay the price of his folly. He is kicked out of Goneril and Regan’s castles and left to suffer out in the storm. He has hit rock bottom at this point, calling upon nature to “Singe [his] white head!” (3.2.6) and kill him to take him out of his misery. As James L. Rosier states in his essay The Lex Aeterna and “King Lear”, “As the pressure on Lear grows and he tragically moves towards a period of despair, he recognizes in the full the internal causes of his downfall.” As Lear travels through the wilderness he realizes how ungrateful he has been for the luxuries life has given him. After having found shelter for the night from the storm he realiz...
... middle of paper ...
...compass from facing challenges and hardships. Everyone faces hardships each day, yet instead of complaining about them we should look at these trials and tribulations and see how they can help us grow.
Works Cited
Carroll, William C. "'The Base Shall Top Th'Legitimate': The Bedlam Beggar and the Role of Edgar in 'King Lear.'" 1987. Winter, 1987. 4th ed. N.p.: Folger Sheakespeare Library, 1987. 426-41. Print. Vol. 38 of Shakespeare Quarterly.
Hawkins, Harriett. "Dramatic Judgement in King Lear." Shakespeare: The Tragedies. Ed. Robert R. Heilman. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1984. 163-74. Print.
Rosier, James L. "The Lex Aeterna and King Lear." 1954. The Journal of English and Germanic Philosophy. Vol. 53. N.p.: University of Illinois Press, 1954. 574-80. Print.
Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Clayton (Deleware): Prestwick House, 2005. Print.
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...
... Lears blessing, and declared his daughter. Lear also realized that Kents speaking out was for Lear’s best and that he too was abused and banished. What stings Lear even more is that he is now completely dependent upon his two shameless daughters, Goneril and Regan. Plus that he must now beg them when he took care of them like a father when they were once children, to drive Lears further into madness he realizes that as king he was so ignorant and blind with power that he never took care of the homeless and let them suffer. All these realization and the fact that Lear is in his second childhood a tender stage drive him into the peak of madness.
Bradley, A.C. "King Lear." 20Lh Century Interpretations of King Lear. Ed. Jane Adelman. New Jersev; Prentice-Hall, 1978.
Harbage, Alfred. " King Lear: An Introduction." Shakespeare: The Tragedies: A Collection of Critical Essays.
Bradley., A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
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...
Bradley., A. C. Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear and Macbeth. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. Ed. Louis B. Wright and Virginia L. Freund. New York: Washington Square, 1957. Print.
Muir, Kenneth. "Great Tragedies I: King Lear." Shakespeare's Sources. London: Methuen & Co Ltd, 1957.
Most readers conclude that Lear is simply blind to the truth. As a result, he grants his inheritance to Goneril and Regan because they flatter him with the words he wants to hear, at the same time, he banishes Cordelia, the only daughter who really loves him. also when his advisor, Kent, warns him that this is a poor idea, Lear throws him out, too. So Lear has to deal with the power struggle his retirement sparked without two of the people who could have smoothed the...
In the beginning of the play the reader learns that Lear is ready to give up his kingdom and retire from a conversation that two noblemen, Gloucester and Kent, are having. He asks his three daughters; Cordelia, Goneril, and Regan to express their love for him to help him make his decision as to who would inherit his kingdom. Cordelia has always been his “favorite” daughter and when asked how much she loved her father she does not lie to him and tells him “I am sure my love’s more ponderous than my tongue” (1363). Rather than being grateful for such love and honesty, Lear banishes her to France and divides his kingdom to his two other daughters. Kent does not agree with Lear’s decision and Lear banishes him too.
Bradley, A.C. Twentieth Century Interpretations of King Lear. Ed. Janet Adelman. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1978.
Lear's relationship with his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, is, from the beginning, very uncharacteristic of the typical father-daughter relationship. It's clear that the king is more interested in words than true feelings, as he begins by asking which of his daughters loves him most. Goneril and Regan's answers are descriptive and sound somewhat phony, but Lear is flattered by them. Cordelia's response of nothing is honest; but her father misunderstands the plea and banishes her. Lear's basic flaw at the beginning of the play is that he values appearances above reality. He wants to be treated as a king and to enjoy the title, but he doesn't want to fulfill a king's obligations. Similarly, his test of his daughters demonstrates that he values a flattering public display of love over real love. He doesn't ask "which of you doth love us most," but rather, "which of you shall we say doth love us most?" (I.i.49). It would be simple to conclude that Lear is simply blind to the truth, but Cordelia is already his favorite daughter at the beginning of the play, so presumably he knows that she loves him the most. Nevertheless, Lear values Goneril and Regan's fawning over Cordelia's sincere sense of filial duty.
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:
King Lear was a tragic hero that was born into nobility, endowed with a tragic flaw and doomed to make a serious error in judgement. King Lear was born into nobility. "He owned vast amounts of land and ruled over many people. Give me the map there. know that we have divided In three our Kingdom." Not only was King Lear born into nobility he was responsible for his own fate. He disowned his daughter Cordelia and made his other two daughters rulers of his land once divided into three now divided into two. His two daughters really did not love him they just wanted the land and power. They turned against their father and had him sentenced to death by Edmund. Lear's death was his own fault. This reason came about because of King Lear's tragic flaw, his pride. Pride is also his reason of how he is a tragic hero. "Tell me, my daughters,-- Since now we will divest us both of rule, Interest of territory, cares of state,-- Which of you shall we say doth love us most, That we our largest bounty may extend Where nature doth with merit challenge?" King Lear was egotistic in the first act where he asked his daughters who loved him most. When he found out his favorite daughter Cordelia did not have much to say about his love for him he disowned her and divided his land to his two evil daughters Regan and Goneril, "From whom we do exist, and cease to be; 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." This was also the error in King Lear's judgement.