King Lear Rough Draft Essay

Owen Katz

Mr Gonzalez

Cambridge A Level English

6/3/23

King Lear Rough Draft Essay

King Lear was first set in the early 17th century as Shakespeare depicted the political battle between heads of state in feudal Europe and the interpersonal struggle in Lear and Gloucester between their families. As typical in many of Shakespeare’s plays there are many characters like Edmund, Regan, and Goneril who act malevolently throughout the play and eventually die. This was the standard form of punishment seen throughout many of Shakespeare’s plays and was the generic ending for evil characters in plays of the Elizabethan era. Also in King Lear we have characters who are considered mostly or wholly good like Cornelia, Edgar, and Kent. In the play there

At the beginning of the play King Lear was blinded by his pride and trustworthiness which lead to him losing his kingdom and giving power to Regan and Goneril who are completely evil according to the Elizabethan view of justice. King Lear in Act 1 says “Which of you shall we say doth love us most” (1.1.56). This is the beginning of King Lear’s downfall as Regan and Goneril flatter him and begin to take over Britain However King Lear cannot be wholly considered malevolent as many of his wrongs come as a result of his agedness or his blind faith in his daughters. Yet King Lear wanders throughout the play suffering from hysteria and eventually he dies after learning of the death of his beloved Cordelia. However since King Lear redeemed himself at the end of the play many would consider his actions not to be evil, yet he dies at the end of the play. In Act 5 King Lear says “We two alone will sing like bird i’ the cage” (5.3.10) indicating that he believes he and Cordelia will forgive each other in the afterlife. This seems to show that this does not represent the typical view of Elizabethan justice since not just the evil characters die at the end of the play. Another example of this is Gloucester whose story is similar to King Lear. Although his pride does cause him to make poor decisions, it is

Edmund would be considered a totally heinous character in Shakespeare’s time so one could argue that this overpowered the virtue’s of characters like King Lear and Cordelia. Nonetheless since the final deaths of King Lear, Gloucester, and Cordelia all occurred on British soil it still does not fit the Elizabethan view of justice. Shakespeare was able to create more heinous characters in his other plays that are not set in Britain because in the Elizabethan time it was more widely accepted to have more morally upright characters be based in England. Shakespear could work around these standards by setting his plays across Europe and North Africa to create more evil antagonists. Since Edmund hailed from England and the deaths of some of the main good characters occurred in England the play still does not follow the typical views of Elizabethan justice. For example in Romeo and Juliet the tragedy that occurs at the end is horrific yet it is set in Italy, and according to many of Shakespeare’s contemporaries and audience members it was seen as more socially acceptable to have these tragedies and heinous antagonists in countries outside of England. However the events of King Lear broke this misconception as some of the evil characters like Regan and Goneril were heirs to the British