King Lear's Journey Through Hell in William Shakespeare's King Lear

Shakespeare’s King Lear is a tragic about an aging King of Britain and his three daughters. When it comes time to divide his kingdom, he puts his daughters through a test to prove how much they love him. The two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, give King Lear flattering answers and therefore receive great amounts of finer land. The third and youngest daughter, Cordilia, says that she has no words to describe how much she loves her father. King Lear becomes enraged with Cordilia and disowns her and gives her no land. The rest of the play tells the story of how the two older daughters become corrupt and get greedy. King Leer is thrown out of his own house by his daughters and begins his

King Lear shows an extreme of human suffering. While there is some foreshadowing to the tragic end of the play and

King Lear is a Shakespearian tragedy revolving largely around one central theme, personal transformation. Shakespeare shows in King Lear that the main characters of the play experience a transformative phase, where they are greatly changed through their suffering. Through the course of the play Lear is the most transformed of all the characters. He goes through seven major stages of transformation on his way to becoming an omniscient character: resentment, regret, recognition, acceptance and admittance, guilt, redemption, and optimism. Shakespeare identifies King Lear as a contemptuous human being who is purified through his suffering into some sort of god.

Due to this flaw, Lear has given way to the two older daughters to conspire against him.  Lear is finally thrown out of his daughters’ homes and left with a fool, a servant and a beggar. This is when Lear realizes the mistake that he has made and suffers the banishment of his two eldest daughters.  Lear is caught in a storm and begins to lose his sanity because he can not bear the treatment of his two daughters as well as the error he has made with Cordelia and Kent.  Lear also suffers from lack of rest when he is moving all over the place and the thing that breaks him is the death of his youngest daughter, Cordelia.  This suffering can be contrasted with other happier times like when Lear was still king and when he was not banished by his two daughters.

Immediately after King Lear awakens, he sees his daughter Cordelia next to him and exclaims “Thou art a soul in bliss; but I am bound/Upon a wheel of fire, that mine own tears/Do scald like molten lead.” (4.7.46-48) King Lear feels a great shame and cannot face Cordelia after becoming aware of how much he has wronged her. Moreover King Lear’s wisdom allowed him to have a realization of the nature of his daughters as he expresses to Cordelia that “for your sisters/Have as I do remember, done me wrong:/You have some cause, they have not” (4.7.73-74). King Lear now recognizes that Cordelia is the one who truly loves him. King Lear is also in a state of humility as he accepts his status as simply Cordelia’s father by referring to himself in the first person instead of with the royal “we”. In his humility, King Lear also realizes how much he was wronged Cordelia and tells her that he will “kneel down/And ask of thee forgiveness” (5.3.10-11). Although King Lear acquires wisdom, he must now bear the burden of his past actions; he admits that he is “a very foolish fond old man” (4.7.60). He now understands that not only did his arrogance bring suffering to himself, he brought suffering onto others. When Cordelia dies, King Lear can no longer accept the grave consequences of his past foolishness and his heart ceases to beat. Unfortunately, King Lear’s wisdom arrived at a time where it was too late for him

Through many of Shakespeare’s plays, tragedy is caused by a series of events that usually stem from human nature. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the main characters Gloucester and King Lear, find their worlds spiraling rapidly into darkness by cause of mistakes such as, King Lear superficiality, Gloucester’s blindness, and both of their quick to act mentalities have ultimately caused their downfall. All of which, the audience can find them self relating to, in some respect, seeing as they are common human mistakes. As the audience follows the play, they begin to relate to the mistake made by both characters and are able to see how everyday human mistakes can produce undesirable consequences.

All of the Shakespeare novels are tragic stories. No surprise that King Lear is also a tragedy. The plot of the novel King Lear are very similar to most of the other Shakespeare tragedy. There are always a main character, who was a hero in the beginning. These kind of hero are usually society important. And then the hero will have a tragic flaw throughout the novel, most likely they had made some wrong decisions. But these tragic flaw are not innocence, there is no excuse for the hero to make the wrong choice, the hero will take the consequences and lead to their death or destruction. King Lear was the king and hero in the beginning of the story, he also has made some wrong decisions, and it cost his and his beloved daughter’s lives.

King Lear is truly a tragedy that symbolizes backstabbing, lying, murdering and betrayal. Shakespeare’s thematic idea behind all of the events was focused around betrayal between families just to get the power and riches. Summing it all up in my opinion the theme of this tragedy is that jealously and power can ruin families and relationships. An example of this jealously is the two daughters turning on their own father that gave them power and then in the end they just end up killing each other over a man. Then, Edmund gets jealous of Edgar and causes problems in their family which led to their father getting his eye gouged out and Edgar having to kill his brother. This tragedy is a prime example of why family always comes first and that karma will always catch up to you. Never betray someone who loves you and don’t let selfishness and greed ruin a

In Shakespeare’s King Lear, the audience is confronted with many contrasts—a wise fool, reason in madness, insight of a blind man, and the power of the powerless. Through these contradictions, the audience and the characters are challenged to stop limiting what’s within by external appearances. In the beginning, King Lear holds a lot of political agency but has no power over his happiness as he looks to his daughters’ words of love for confirmation. The sisters that verbally express the most love turn out to be evil; the people Lear banishes turn out to be the most loyal. The audience realizes in the beginning that things are not always as they seem.

“The world has been emptied of all vitality, that of the soul’s spontaneous rebellion against the ego, as well as that of bastardy and excess…”(Oates). Towards the end of the tragedy, the false innocence of the children and the true guilt of the king can be seen. Initially, Lear was wrongly portrayed as selfish, but it is made clear that it was the wrongdoings of his offspring that reflected poorly on his decision to betray God’s law. Another form of betrayal is seen in Lear’s daughters as Shakespeare writes, “If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts against their father, fool me not so much to bear it tamely; touch me with noble anger, and let not women’s weapons, water-drops, stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags…” (Shakespeare). In the family aspect, betrayal is seen in the form of two power-hungry daughters that go against their father right after pledging their love to him. Finally, betrayal allows the reader to truly realize that those with good intentions are forgiven, but those with tyranny in mind do not get to lead a happy life. The ultimate point Shakespeare is trying to make is that disrupting what is normal may occur in slight forms or extreme forms, but either way, chaos will succeed. This final conclusion about King Lear when Capet states, ”His fate is to learn that there is, there must be, since the hardness of

In William Shakespeare’s King Lear, Lear is driven to madness through his stubborn nature of being and his loss of identity. Throughout the play Lear loses all of which define his identity. His fatherhood, his role as king, and respect, all eventually lead to the loss of his sanity. Lear’s journey through his madness offers him a new perspective of the core nature of people, realizing that at our core, people are no different than animals. King Lear initially had planned to retire with Cordelia with his kingdom split amongst his three daughters, but that was not the case due to Cordelia’s refusal to convey her love in his manner.

Eventually, while placed in compromising situations King Lear comes to realize who has been truly loyal to him all along. Overall,

Furthermore, King Lear suffers a loss of power which causes him to reveal his true nature when his powers as King and as a father are departed and he is able to see the innocence behind his daughter, Cordelia's, love for him. He is reunited with Cordelia and instantly compelled to beg for her forgiveness: "We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage./ When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down/ And ask of thee forgiveness. So we'll live,/ And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh..." (5.3.9-12). This is unveils King Lear's truly humble and loving nature. In summary, because Cordelia, Gloucester and King Lear all suffer a loss of power in the play, their true natures are ultimately revealed.

At the beginning of the play King Lear has more power than anyone else, the feeling of power made him think it was okay to ask his three daughters who loved him the most. When his youngest and favourite daughter Cordelia did not give him the answer he wanted by saying, “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave / My heart into my mouth/ I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less” (King Lear 1.1.91-93). he started lashing out. Lear clearly values Goneril and Regan fawning over him over Cordelia’s sincere honesty. Out of pride and anger, Lear banishes Cordelia, as well as Kent for defending her. Lear splits the kingdom in half to Goneril and Regan which leads to the deaths of many people in the play. Throughout the play he becomes increasingly shocked when people do not obey him the way they did before and the lack of respect he receives. With his loss of power Lear often responds to these problems with anger saying things like “My curses on her!” (2.4.138). about his own daughter. By the end of the play he recognizes that he takes responsibility for both his own problems and for those of others. King Lear’s actions were the first step to the plays tragic outcome.

Basically King Lear wants to live the rest of his life in “retirement”. The irrational choices are already becoming apparent. Releasing the ownership of the land is the beginning of these choices. Each King in history thanks his power to his kingdom and hold over the land. In this case, that power leaves Lear’s possession at the point when he gives up his land to his children. Unfortunately his choices do not get any wiser; the banishment of his favorite and most loyal daughter Cordelia, along with his servant Kent, begins to really show his irrational decision making.\ “When Lear decides to divide his kingdom between his three daughters …he creates a situation in which his eldest daughters gain authority over him and mistreat him” (Bard). After dividing the land, his daughter Goneril sets out to betray her father by taking over the kingdom. Before setting off on his own madness, Lear takes his knights and stays with Goneril, partying all the time while, at the same time, disrupting Goneril. His wild behavior aggravates Goneril to the point where she decides to ask him leave her home. Not only does he ruin