Norma Desmond's Delusions In King Lear

In the movie Sunset Boulevard, Norma Desmond’s delusions are caused by her butler and ex-husband Max. Similarly, in King Lear, Kent caused King Lear to have delusions. The common downfall of Norma Desmond and King Lear is caused by the people around them crossing the line from aegis to enabler. They tell them what they want to hear, which causes them to be unable to see reality, to only see what they want to see, and ultimately puts them in a state of denial.

First, in Sunset Boulevard, the butler Max told Norma what she wanted her to hear, which caused her to be unable to see reality. An example of Norma’s inability to see that she is no longer popular. Norma will not accept that the movie business has moved on and has gotten better with time and technological advancements, “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small” (Wilder). Norma continually claims that she is still a star and that the movie business got worse with the installation of sound. She claims that movies are now limited to what they can mean and actors do not have

However, true loyalty and friendship requires throwing them a lifesaver when they’re crossing the line into madness. Kent let King Lear fall apart when the cruelty of his daughters led him to delusion. After Kent was banned, he stated “”my good intent / May carry through itself to that full issue / For which I razed my likeness. Now, banished Kent, / If thou canst serve where thou dost stand /condemned, / So may it come thy master, whom thou lov’st / Shall find thee full of labors” (King Lear Act 1.Scene 4.2-8). This shows Kent’s intentions of feeding into Lear’s downfall by pretending to be someone else just to prove his love and watch out for him. As Kent pretends to be Caius, he’s only telling Lear what he wants to hear, and not the obvious truth: that his daughters are evil, and the power he had a confident grip on for so many years is slipping out of his fingers like grains of