King Lear Suffering

The wisdom that comes with suffering: Comparative essay

Aristotle once said “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom” (“Quotes About Wisdom” 2016). Shakespeare succeeds proving that when a character achieves self-awareness that is when they become wise. Normally, by the time an individual reaches old age, the virtue of wisdom is strong. However, Gloucester and King Lear clearly show they do not have much wisdom due to the foolish decisions they make throughout the play; even though they had already reached old age. The suffering both of these characters went through proves that wisdom is not always synonymous with age but rather with the self-awareness gained through suffering and realization of their tragic flaw. The wisdom that Gloucester

Both of them have that poor judgement that makes them do foolish decisions such as trusting the wrong child. In the case of King Lear he gave away all his power to the wrong hands, and disowned the only daughter that truly loved him. Gloucester was gullible and believed his unnatural son over the son that truly loved him. They have both failed as parents, resulting in their tragic downfall. They both reached wisdom in their own way. Lear achieves it by losing his sanity and becoming self-aware of what had happened in his life. Gloucester had to go through the physical pain of losing his eyes to achieve that self-awareness he needed in order to attain wisdom. The events that go around both of these characters make them the perfect tragic heroes. They both started with the perfect life, but they were very foolish. Because of how foolish they were they had to go through a whole lot of great suffering. All the suffering they went through helped them become who they were meant to be; wise elderly men. They won our admiration by realizing their tragic flaw and realizing how foolish they were. For Lear his tragic flaw was that he had poor judgement. For Gloucester, his tragic flaw was how gullible he is and how he did not question whatever he was told. Because of these flaws they both tragically die, but not before realizing it was their fault they were dying. Shakespeare does a good job portraying these two characters as the tragic heroes since it fits the perfect definition Aristotle gave; “a person who must evoke a sense of pity and fear in the audience. He is considered a man of misfortune that comes to him through error of judgment” (“Tragic Hero” 2). The use of the tragic hero in the play emphasizes the tragic flaws of these characters and how it ultimately brings them to their