Justice in King Lear

Introduction

The conflict of justice is a conspicuous feature of the great tragedies, notably King Lear, and is ultimately resolved, in its tragic context. The asseverations of Goneril and Regan soon emerge as the cynical conceits they really are, but by then Lear has banished Cordelia and the loyal Kent, who saw through the sham. Lear is successively and ruthlessly divested of all the accoutrements of kingship by his villainous daughters, who eventually reduce him to the condition of a ragged, homeless madman (Shakespeare, 55).

There is a constant argument of justice and how those two are interpreted through conversation and actions of the characters. It is also a story of arrogance and humility, breaking of previous perception to an exposure to a wider reality. A story about major family problems (both Lear and Gloucester). Conflicts of man vs. man, society, gods, nature and self with many characters. As the quote suggests:

“LEAR […] O heavens! If you do love old men, ... if your sweet sway Show obedience, if you yourselves are old, Make it your cause. Send down, and take my part! (2.4.26)”

Paradoxically, it is in this extremity on the heath with Edgar and the fool that Lear comes to knowledge of himself and his community with humanity that he had never achieved while enjoying the glories of power. Buffeted by the natural fury of the storm, which is symbolic of the chaos and danger that come with the passing of the old order, Lear through his madness sees the common bond that connects him to the rest of humanity, as the quote presents:

Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,

That bide the pelting ... of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your loop'd and window'd raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these? O, I have ta'en

Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them,

And show the heavens more just (3.4.4) (Shakespeare, 56).

Discussion

Particularly, in Act IV, the experience of Lear is, on a more manageable, human level, mirrored in the Gloucester subplot. Gloucester too suffers filial ingratitude but not one raised to a cosmic level. He too mistakes appearance for reality in trusting the duplicitous Edmund and disinheriting the honest Edgar, but his behavior is more clearly the outgrowth of an existing moral confusion, which is reflected in his ambivalent and unrepentant affection ...