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King Lear Research Paper

801 Words4 Pages

Chintan Khanduja
Mrs. Mitani
ENG4UI
19 January, 2016 The Journey of Self-Discovery

In William Shakespeare's King Lear, the main character King Lear makes some poor political decisions early in the play. For King Lear, Marcel Proust's quotation ''We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.'' clearly applies. People cannot be 'given' or receive wisdom, they need to experience and learn things for themselves. In the play, King Lear experiences certain hardships in his life and discovers that he made a poor decision of banishing Cordelia and giving his power and authority to Regan and Goneril. King Lear clearly demonstrates that people …show more content…

King Lear says, “Doth any here know me? Can tell me who I am?” (1.4.201–205). This makes Lear question himself whether he is really a king anymore or he has lost his identity. Also he has started realizing that he was wrong in giving his power to Goneril and it was his poor decision. Similarly, by sending Kent to the stocks, Regan indicates her disrespect for Lear. When Lear realizes that Regan is treating him badly, he says “O, how this mother swells up toward my heart! / .... down, thou climbing sorrow” (2.4.54–55).“The mother” implies the weakness that shows emotional disturbance. Goneril and Regan offend their father King Lear by telling him that he is old and weak: “I pray you, father, being weak, seem so” (2.4.196). These words imply Lear’s loss of power and authority and the fact that he is growing old. The sisters’ refusal to allow Lear to keep his hundred knights and Regan’s refusal to allow him to stay with her make Lear understand that he can no longer order like a king. This makes him realize that he was completely wrong in giving his authority and power to Goneril and Regan and he made a poor …show more content…

Both of these feelings appear when Lear says, “Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! rage! blow! / You cataracts.......spout / Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks!”(3.2.1–3). Lear questions how life can have treated him so poorly. However, further Lear notices his Fool and says, “I have one part in my heart / That’s sorry yet for thee” (3.2.70–71). Lear shows his sympathy towards his fool. These scenes illustrate that after experiencing such bad situations and the hardships, Lear is transforming into a good human being and he only blames his two daughters for their betrayal. Lear is repenting on the decision he made and now his aim is to get forgiveness from

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Shakespeare uses direct address to show his daughters that he is laying down a challenge to them. The competition also Lear to feed his self absorbed ego while also dividing the kingdom in order to relinquish the responsibilities without losing the title or the power. His narcism leads him to favour the daughter who offers the most amount of physical objects, rather than realising the value of respect and love that Cordelia promises. Unlike Edmund, Lear constantly looks for someone else to blame for the consequences of his actions and that is shown in this quote,”You see me here, you gods….If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts against their father, fool me not so much to bear it tamely” (Lear).

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Not only does Lear disown his own daughter, but he also banishes his most loyal noble, Kent. His blindness keeps him from being able to exercise his power rightly. Kent warns Lear for bowing to flattery and falling into folly, but Lear's obsession with himself blurs his view of the world, causing him to fall into the traps of deception and making him unable to take care of his kingdom. Lear is unable to see which of his daughters really care for him until he is stripped of his pride and title. When Goneril speaks disrespectfully to Lear, he replies, "Does any here know me?

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The fool is also full of wisdom, and is not afraid to tell things how he sees them. The Fool, a lot like Kent does not care about the consequences of his words or actions, he speaks his mind and stands by Lear’s side through his bad experience. The Fool’s purpose is to lighten up the mood, but in reality, through his bluntness he opens Lear’s eyes about the wrongs he had done by giving up his kingdom and power, Since Lear did not want to listen to everyone else’s warnings, the Fool harshly tells him his mistakes in order to make Lear see and notice his actions. Later on, the Fool decides that he is better off being with Lear, and accompanies him through his miserable journey.

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This would be especially difficult for her sisters, since they had already experienced the love and attention of their father before he began to shower it all on Cordelia. However, they did not deal with the experience the same way. At multiple points throughout the play, Goneril demonstrates empathy for her father, whereas Regan shuns him completely. When Lear rushes into the storm at the end of act 2, Goneril entreats Regan to send someone after him, worried about his safety, especially since he is visibly descending into madness. Regan, however, orders the doors

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Witnessing the powerful forces of the natural world, Lear comes to understand that he, like the rest of humanity, is irrelevant in the world. This realization proves much more important than the realization of his loss of political control, as it enforces him to set up his values and become gentle and caring. With this newfound understanding of himself, Lear hopes to be able to accost the chaos in the political realm as well. King Lear is a symbol of a strong man, who has a Reason that counts, a powerful King who gives everything and gets nothing. King Lear, we may say that he lost his authority to his daughters, as a father, once he gave them

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Lear is an example of what can happen when you learn too late in life how important it is to have insight. It takes Lear to become homeless at the hands of Regan by the time he has realized that his two evil daughters have total control over his kingdom. Life is not always black and white, and this message from Shakespeare is very

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His view on showing love is expressing it through words, so when Cordelia fails in her declaration of love, Lear sees this fail as a lack of love and ungratefulness, especially when he decides to give the entire kingdom to his daughters. The fact that Lear has good intentions to begin with, prompts the reader to forgive him easier. Regan and Goneril on the

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