British Literature Shakespeare’s king Lear

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British Literature Shakespeare’s king Lear King Lear, by William Shakespeare is a tragedy. The title depicts a character, who descents into madness mainly after he disposes of his important estate between his two daughters, but neglects one of his three daughters. His choice if purely caused by the flattery of two of his three daughters between whom he disposes of his estate. His decision ultimately becomes tragic consequences, which affects his entire family (Sparknotes.com). King Lear is a play, which talks of the legend of Britain Leir. The Leir of Britain was a pre-Roman Celtic king who was mythological. With respect to this book, Shakespeare seems to write primarily to bring readers to philosophy. He seems to give them a chance to participate in the play as if they are involved. His plays seem to reveal that fundamental human questions are entrenched within ordinary human experiences. In the case of King Lear, Shakespeare brings family squabbles, turmoil, madness, and other unethical behaviors that contribute to family breakage and conflicts in the society. In the play, King Lear is elderly and wishes to retire from his power. He thus wants to divide his estate among all his three daughters. His way of dividing the realm is done on conditions such as whoever loves him the most gets the largest share. This promise becomes the main source of the problem since two of his daughters structure some cunning mechanisms to win the kings promise. Regan and Goneril find it easy to win his heart by proclaiming that they love their father (the king) more than anything else in the world. He is pleased by their love for him. The third daughter, Cordelia, is very honest with her love for the king. She has nothing to compare her lover for the king (Damrosch, pg.1372). She also lacks applicable words to express her love for King Lear (her father). This attitude infuriates the king since his not ware that her third daughter is expressing her feelings honestly although bluntly. He is so angry with her that he decides to disinherit her. He narrows his decision, which was initially aimed at dividing the realm among the three daughters, to only Regan and Goneril (Sparknotes.com).
Cordelia suffers much from her father decision besides losing her rightful inheritance, which she had been promised and that she was very assured of acquiring. She is rejected by the Duke of Burgundy, who had proposed to marry her (Lombardi). This happens after the Duke learns of her disinheritance. Contrary to this withdrawal by the Duke of Burgundy, the King of France, who had also proposed to her decides to marry her, especially because to her honesty. Regan and Goneril are married by the Duke of Cornwall and the Duke of Albany respectively (Damrosch, pg.1389). The king decides to live with these two dukes since he needs the support of her two daughters. Contrary to what the king thinks of Goneril and Regan, the two daughters are very evil, and end up revealing in secrecy that their lover for their father was untrue. They only viewed their father a foolish old man (Griggs, pg.56). Out of his lack of information, the king continues to recruit other people, who add pressure to his family problems through their cunning motives.
Goneril gains more power than ever before to a point that she has the capacity to order his father and hardly respects him anymore. The same case of disrespect is seen in Regan when she mock Lear after visiting her home. Edmund is very cunning and fakes an attack by Edgar when he learns the likelihood of war between Cornwall and Albany. This way, he gets a chance to disinherit Edgar thereby proclaiming him an outlaw. Aspects of cunningness and hatred case continue throughout the play (Bate). Individuals are characterized by greed, materialism, need for power, and hatred among other social evils. These practices seem to originate from the kings home, who has no intention of bringing evil to the society but he is easily tricked into contributing to the same problems. As the play progresses, Shakespeare shows the readers that family love is ever strong and can hardly be terminated by any outside forces (Bate). While each of the family members is far away from the rest, they have some concern for each other. This is shown by Regan and Goneril decision to fight the French invaders but concludes that they should not harm Cordelia and Lear, who are part of the French kingdom. Edmund secretly orders for their death after defeating the French. Edmund is seen as a traitor, but before long, Regan dies of illness although Cordelia is said to have poisoned her sister, Regan (Damrosch, pg.1402). His decisions see King Lear’s family perish, including the king himself. First, Cordelia poisons her sister Regan out of jealousy. This has been the trend but Goneril commits suicide while holding to her ill plans (Mullin). It could be a sign of regrets to what she did to her sister besides playing a major role in terminating her family. Lear is now discovering his mistakes and that Cordelia was the only daughter who loves him in an honesty way. Edmund is also regretting for his orders to have them killed and tries to save them. Cordelia is killed but Lear kills the executioner. He dies in this scene while holding Cordelia corpse. His blinded decisions have caused him his kingdom and family. Works Cited
Bate, Jonathan. The Case for the Folio. 2013. Web. 30 Nov 2013.
Damrosch, David. The Longman anthology of British literature. New York: Longman, 2002. Print.
Griggs, Yvonne. Screen Adaptations: Shakespeare 's King Lear: A Close Study of the Relationship Between Text and Film. London: Methuen Drama, 2009. Print.
Lombardi, Esther. King Lear ' Questions for Study and Discussion: William Shakespeare 's Famous Play. 2013. Web. 30 Nov 2013.
Mullin, Emily. Macready 's Triumph: The Restoration of King Lear to the British Stage. 31 Jul 2012. Web. 30 Nov 2013.
Sparknotes.com. King Lear: William Shakespeare. 2013. Web. 31 Nov 2013.

Cited: Bate, Jonathan. The Case for the Folio. 2013. Web. 30 Nov 2013. Damrosch, David. The Longman anthology of British literature. New York: Longman, 2002. Print. Griggs, Yvonne. Screen Adaptations: Shakespeare 's King Lear: A Close Study of the Relationship Between Text and Film. London: Methuen Drama, 2009. Print. Lombardi, Esther. King Lear ' Questions for Study and Discussion: William Shakespeare 's Famous Play. 2013. Web. 30 Nov 2013. Mullin, Emily. Macready 's Triumph: The Restoration of King Lear to the British Stage. 31 Jul 2012. Web. 30 Nov 2013. Sparknotes.com. King Lear: William Shakespeare. 2013. Web. 31 Nov 2013.