King Lear

King Lear is widely regarded as Shakespeare`s most intense, profound

and powerful tragedy. It was written in 1605-1606, in the period

which was marked by great tragedies that were the peak of

Shakespeare`s achievement. Having taken as a basis old Celtic legend
with a simpler plot and more or less happy end (Lear and Cordelia
defeated their enemies and survived in the original), Shakespeare has
added a subplot, several new characters and has made the main plot
much more tragic. There were a lot of rewritings of this story before
him, but we do not remember them, while Shakespeare`s creation has
become an enduring classic of the world`s literature. The legend itself
was quite simple; the problem consisted in relations between children
and parents, childrens duties and so on. And in work of Shakespeare
the range of problems and questions is considerably broaden. This
play raises eternal questions about human nature and human
suffering, morality and life`s significance. The famous genius of
English literature wrote passionate, touching, horrific and heartrending play. It has become very popular; there are great amount of
staging of King Lear (about 25 only in Russia) and about 6
screenings. Nowadays this tragedy remains urgent and popular, a lot
of people are reading it, and in the theater and on the screen King
Lear continues to challenge and enthrall. But why it is still vital to the
readers now, at the beginning of the 21st century? Why it so
impressive and interesting? I will try to find answer to these questions
in my essay.
First of all I would like to say that in general Shakespeare`s plays in
general don`t lose their urgency, because they touch upon timeless
themes, like love and hatred, treachery and faithfulness, lie and truth
etc. These and many other feelings and problems are experienced by
great characters like Hamlet, King Lear, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet.
When ordinary person reads a work of literature, he subconsciously
searches a reflection of his own feelings in it. And there are so wide

range of problems in Shakespeare`s plays that everyone can find

something, that will correspond with his feelings. Moreover, in works
of Bard of Avon reader can find his feelings expressed in lofty,
emotional, sometimes hyperbolized manner with heightened tragedy
and so on. And when he finds this reflection and connection between
his problems and emotions and those with which characters of a play
are faced with, it make him feel more significant and important. I
think that is one more thing, except for captivating plot and perfect
language, which attracts people to Shakespeares plays.
In my opinion, King Lear is one of the most complicated, profound
and extensive tragedies, which raises a huge amount of problems.
Some of them are obvious and accessible, some are hidden and veiled.
Of course, it is impossible to point out and discuss all problems
raised in the play, so I will try to concentrate on those which I was
able to notice and more or less understand.
The most obvious problem, on which the plot is constructed and from
which a lot of another problems and questions are following, is the
problem of relations between fathers and children. So, Lear, King of
Britain, has three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. He loves
them so much, that decides to divide his kingdom into three parts
and to give one part to each daughter. Here arises a question of
excessive love of parents. To my mind, it was a really wrong,
unreasonable decision, because every ruler tries to save his lands
from dividing and so on, because it usually led to internecine wars.
And only boundless love to daughters could make such a wise and
experienced king as Lear to do so. This step led to bad consequences,
but if Lear was more temperate, it wouldn`t happened.

Indeed, sometimes when parents love their children too much, they
are as if they were blinded, and their love often can damage their
children, spoil them and so on. It happens quite often nowadays.
However, paternal love of King Lear is very doubtful. When parents
really love their child, they will love him forever, no matter how he
behaves or what he says. And Cordelia didn`t do anything awful,
didn`t say anything insulting, she even not show any indifference or
something like this. It seems to me that if Lear truly loved Cordelia he
wouldn`t curse, humiliate and deprive her of inheritance and fortune
only for her words, which indeed were full of respect and obedience. (
I

love your majesty/According to my bond; nor more nor less.

.Good my lord,/You have begot me, bred me, loved me: I/Return
those duties back as are right fit,/Obey you, love you, and most honour
you. ) Of course these words could offend father, of course he
expected more, but he couldn`t do so, if he really loved her. I think
Cordelia is absolutely right, when she says: Why have my sisters
husbands, if they say/They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
/That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry/Half my love
with him, half my care and duty:/Sure, I shall never marry like my
sisters, /To love my father all. Because if children love their parents
too much (especially daughters and fathers), it isn`t good at all.
Children are growing up and they should become more or less
emancipated. Of course, it isn`t this case and Regan and Goneril
don`t like their father at all, but this will be later.
There is one interesting question: why have grown up such different
daughters in one family? How can two daughters almost hate their
father and don`t have any respect or pity to him, while the third so
sincerely loves him? It would be absolutely inexplicably and
unreasonably, if Lear`s attitude was similar to each daughter.

But it wasn`t like this, because Cordelia had been the favorite child.
For example, King of France says: This is most strange, /That she,
that even but now was your best object, /The argument of your praise,
balm of your age, /Most best, most dearest... and Goneril confirms
later:

he

always loved our sister most.So of course, if he loved

Cordelia more than other daughters, it could offend them and arouse
envy to their sister and dislike for their father in their hearts.
So let`s return to the plot. Lear divides his kingdom into two parts
and gives them to his elder daughters on condition that he will live for
a month with the first and then a month with the second. But after he
has lived with Goneril for a while, she began to behave in an
unfriendly manner, her servants didn`t show any respect to Lear. This
was because his retinue, which included 100 knights, was making a
row, beating her servants, behaving too loudly and so on. When I was
watching King Lear in the theatre for the first time, I couldn`t
understand, who is right, because I could easily explain and
understand Goneril`s resentment. Just imagine, you are the lady of
the house, everything is in order, and your life is calm and full of
comfort and prosperity. And then suddenly 100 men appears in your
house, drink, eat, crush everything, cry, beat your people and don`t
obey you. So it is naturally enough, in my opinion, under such
circumstances to ask your own father to make his retinue smaller.
But taking into consideration the fact that Lear has given to t
everything he had: rule and lands to his daughters and they were only
to care for him in return, her behavior appears in another light. And
future (subsequent) deeds of king`s daughters are really awful and
merciless. Their behavior made Lear insane, led to the war, and
eventually destroyed many lives. This can be referred to the question
about significance of life and how great can be influence of one your

step on the lives of others. And of course it is the great example of

children`s ingratitude. Similar example is provided by Edmund, who
betrayed his father Gloucester, who had recognized him as his son
and love him no less than Edgar, his lawful son. Indeed stories of
Lear and Gloucester are extremely similar: they both have good
children, which they were angry with in the beginning and which
turned out to be an example of children`s love, care and faithfulness;
they both have bad children, who deceived them in the beginning,
then betrayed them and made them to suffer. Lear became mad,
Gloucester became blind, they both were wandering and both had
disguised fellows, who were helping them, but had to pretend tramps
and peasants (Kent with Lear and Edgar with Gloucester); both
learned the truth in the end and died.
So, the problem of relations between children and fathers is shown
quite broadly. Of course I have pointed out only several questions and
there are a lot of them. I think this problem is really vital for us
nowadays because of the increasing of generation gap, for example,
and many other problems.
It seems to me, that all characters in the play are divided into two
groups, two camps: good and bad, honest and lying, devoted and
traitors. In the first camp are: Cordelia, an example of kindness,
morality and honesty, she said the truth and the beginning, she chose
honor instead of fortune, she came to help and protect her father,
who had been so rude to her, in the end; Kent, who tried to protect
Cordelia from the anger of the king under the threat of death, who
have been outcast, but wasn`t afraid to come to the Lear to help him
and follow him in all his wanderings; devoted and brave Gloucester;
his son Edgar, clever, brave and honorable. King of France is also
positive character, because he married Cordelia without fortune and

lands. Duke of Albany is in the middle, because he is kind and

honorable in his soul, but in the war he was on the side of sisters.
But there are much more people in the second camp, they are the
embodiment of vice, vanity, hypocrisy, greediness and ambition.
There are: Goneril and Regan, hypocrites and liars, who doomed their
father to death and humiliation, they hate even each other (Goneril
poisoned Regan), they are cruel and violent (Regan is even more
violent and angry than Duke of Cornwall when they torture
Gloucester); Duke of Cornwall, Regan`s husband and accomplice;
Oswald, Goneril`s steward, who lies permanently, and of course the
main villain-Edmund, who deceived and betrayed brother and father
in pursuit of money and title, who seduced both sisters and swore in
love to each of them, he planned to kill Duke of Albany, he gave the
order to kill Lear and Cordelia and committed a lot of other crimes. In
my imagination, Lear is between them, he is neither good, nor bad.
On the one hand, he is quite generous and loving father, offended by
his daughters; he has lost everything and become unhappy and mad.
We are taking pity on him and everyone is upset when he dies. But on
the other hand, he is egoist and self-lover, if he wants his daughters
to love him so much, he is a sucker for flattery, he is vain, if the
amount of knights in his retinue is so important for him, he is not
wise at all to my mind, if he can`t tell sincerity from flattery, and must
have stony heart if he could treat his own daughter so violently. So
his sufferings can be considered like retribution for his deeds.
The problem of truth and lie, sincerity and pretence touches every
character in the play, each of them has a choice: to lie or not to lie, to
believe or not to believe. In modern society this problem is
undoubtedly very vital and important.

There is almost no love story in this tragedy. But great example of

true love is the story of Cordelia and King of France, who sacrificed
money, lands and supporters, which he could have, if he would marry
another girl, and made poor humiliated Cordelia a queen of France.
This story is contrasted with dirty relations between Edmund, Regan
and Goneril. I think there is no love at all between them. Edmund is
guided by passion for power and money, Regan by lust may be, and
Goneril wants to get rid of her husband. In the end they were
unmasked and died, what is also like vengeance. There is a problem
of marriage of convenience, of mercenary spirit in relationship, of
jealousy and so on. It is obvious how urgent are this problems in our
time, time of adulteries and marital agreements.
Now I would like to cite some wise and interesting phrases and lines,
which raises new problems or deepen those I have already wrote
about, or which are just vital nowadays.
Lear:
Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.
The King, who has become poor peasant, understands how difficult
life of his poor subjects is. It is absolutely true, if every rich man was
in peasant`s shoes at least for a day, may be his attitude to life and to
people would change.

Edgar:
When we our betters see bearing our woes,
We scarcely think our miseries our foes.
Who alone suffers suffers most i' the mind,
Leaving free things and happy shows behind:
But then the mind much sufferance doth o'er skip,
When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship.
How light and portable my pain seems now,
When that which makes me bend makes the king bow,
This is also really wise; indeed it is easier to cope with your tragedy, if
someone near you has the same or worse.
And one more neat quotation by Edgar:
And worse I may be yet: the worst is not
So long as we can say 'This is the worst.
To the question of life`s significance and how difficult it is:
Gloucester:
As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods.
They kill us for their sport.
Lear:
we came crying hither:
Thou know'st, the first time that we smell the air,
We wawl and cry.

Edgar:
Men must endure
Their going hence, even as their coming hither;
Ripeness is all: come on.

In conclusion, I would like to say that the more I read and think
about King Lear, the more I try to understand it, the less I truly
understand it. There are so many problems and questions, so many
hidden meanings in every line, that it is just very difficult to realize
them fully, to put them in order in your head. I think universality is
one of greatest advantages of this play. It means that it can be
interesting for everybody, one will appreciate captivating plot, other
will find reflection of his own feelings in it and the third will discover a
lot of secret meanings, will like the passionate verse and the
complexity of language. One can understand it very simply and
primitively, others see much more. Undoubtedly, King Lear is one of
the greatest plays of Shakespeare, which is really urgent nowadays
and should be read by everyone.