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Essay / Shakespeare's King Lear - 1000
It's often said "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger", and Shakespeare himself seems to agree with this old adage. In his tragedy King Lear, several of his main characters have an experience that takes them far from their comfort zone to change them for the better. Throughout King Lear, Shakespeare shows that man cannot be morally strong without overcoming suffering. At the beginning of the play, King Lear is a foolish old man. He is blind to the traitors around him. Although he can physically see, he is blind to the perfidious lies of his two older daughters about their undying love for him. He is also blind to the truth. He thinks his advisor Kent and his youngest daughter Cordelia are liars, when in fact they are the ones telling him the truth. He banishes the two people he should have held closest by telling Kent, “Turn your hated back/on our kingdom” (1.1.189-190) and Cordelia. Here I renounce all my paternal care, and like a stranger to my heart and to me, hold you. , from then on, forever. (1.1.119-122) To realize the error of his ways, he must pay the price for his folly. He is expelled from the castles of Goneril and Regan and left to suffer in the storm. He hit rock bottom at this point, calling on nature to “sing [its] white head!” » (3.2.6) and kill him to put him out of his misery. As James L. Rosier says in his essay La Lex Aeterna and "King Lear," "As the pressure on Lear increases and he moves tragically toward a period of despair, he fully recognizes the internal causes of his fall. » As Lear travels through the wilderness, he realizes how ungrateful he has been for the luxuries that life has given him. After finding shelter for the night from the storm, he realizes...... in the middle of paper...... a compass to face challenges and difficulties. Everyone faces difficulties every day, but instead of complaining about them, we should look at these trials and tribulations and see how they can help us grow. the role of Edgar in “King Lear”. » 1987. Winter 1987. 4th ed. Np: Folger Sheakespeare Library, 1987. 426-41. Print. Flight. 38 of Shakespeare Quarterly. Hawkins, Harriett. “Dramatic Judgment in King Lear.” Shakespeare: The Tragedies. Ed. Robert R. Heilman. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall Inc., 1984. 163-74. Print.Rosier, James L. “The Lex Aeterna and King Lear.” 1954. The Journal of English and Germanic Philosophy. Flight. 53. Np: University of Illinois Press, 1954. 574-80. Print.Shakespeare, William. King Lear. Clayton (Deleware): Prestwick House, 2005. Print.