King Lear

In the play King Lear, Shakespeare converted the legend of Lear into a great and terrible tragedy. The play’s intensity is heightened by Shakespeare’s portrayals of the madness of Lear, brought on by the cruelty of Goneril and Regan; the unlawful death of Cordelia; and the death of King Lear with Cordelia's body in his arms. These aspects of the story are original to Shakespeare’s play, as is the character of the Fool, whose bitter jests bring home to Lear the folly of his action. Both Lear's madness and the Fool's wit raise the explicit theme of the play—inhumanity in the form of filial ingratitude—to a higher level of philosophical meaning and resolution.

King Lear is different among Shakespeare's tragedies as it contains a subplot, the story of the Duke of Gloucester and his sons, Edgar and Edmund. Shakespeare interwove the subplot with the main plot by making both of Lear’s eldest daughters fall for Edmund, a situation that doomed them leading to their deaths. The double plot also provides parallels in the fates of King Lear and Gloucester. The ruin of both men is brought about not only by their children's ingratitude, but also by their own lack of insight of what was happening around them. King Lear is a nonsensically proud man, expecting his daughters to love him more than anything else. Gloucester, on the other hand, is blind to the feelings of others, he never suspects that Edmund resents his birth out of wedlock. Only after they have suffered at the hands of their children do King Lear and Gloucester achieve insight. Stripped of his kingdom and his arrogant pride, Lear goes mad and then, ironically, is able to perceive the reality of life more clearly. Similarly, Gloucester attains true vision only after his eyes have been put out. His insight begins with despair at the inhumanity of fate:

As flies to wanton boys, are we to th'Gods;

sThey kill us for their sport.

Taken as a whole, King Lear is the story of the struggle between good and evil. Both King...