The Character of King Lear



The Character of King Lear

Abstract

King Lear is one of the famous tragedies of William Shakespeare. The story deals with the issues of human kinship and the associated suffering. The character of King Lear reveals that he was good and wise man, just in feelings and purpose, and strong in reason. He lost these characteristics of his personality over the growing age mainly due to the deceiving of his most trusted daughters. The play focuses on the human relationships, betrayals, killings and adultery. This paper presents the character study of King Lear.

Introduction

King Lear is one of the most famous tragedies by Shakespeare. It was written between the years 1603 and 1606, and was first performed in 1606 (Bevington, 2008). It is the story of relationship between the king and his daughters. King Lear descends into madness as his state was disposed between two of his three daughters. It was the flattery of King Lear's daughters that brought tragic consequences. The King used to enjoy absolute power of his state and did not have the ability to respond to the challenges or to the conflicts. Essentially, the play is based on the mythological Pre Roman character of Lear of Britain. Several versions were of the book were published by Shakespeare between the period 1603 and 1623. The major theme of the play is human suffering as it relates to the issues of kinship.

From the historic perspective, Lear is considered as one of the finest creation of Shakespeare. The efficacy and odor of a varied and remote past is seen in his character, as he spokes out from a fund of vanishing recollections. The play prepares and forecasts the intellectual ruin from the outset. The King had three daughters, out of which the youngest one was married to the King of France without any dowry, so the kingdom was divided between the two elder daughters (Lofgren, 2002). The story revealed the darker side of the families and relations. It shows that how does the people break the relationships and betray their dear ones. The play also includes the issues of adultery, killings, old age, loss of power, duties of a ruler and many more (Tweg, 2000).

Characters in the Play

The characters in the play are somewhat complex. Many of the characters may appear good to the readers at first, but a close analysis of these characters uncovers their evil part (Lofgren, 2002). In the following, the character study of this play is presented.

King Lear

The play centers on the initial satisfaction and later madness of the title character, King Lear. The values of the King can be seen to be notably hollow during the initial course of the play and he used to prioritize the appearance of love over the true devotion. He did not want to overburden himself with responsibilities but wanted to maintain his power as a king. He enjoyed loyalty of the characters such as Cordelia, Gloucester, Edgar, and Kent; all of them put ...