King Lear Essay, Research Paper

"Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive".

Sir Walter Scott may not have intended to describe the tangled web of secrets

that fuels Shakespeare’s tragedy "King Lear", but it certainly

applies. Secrets come in many shapes and sizes, and in works of literature they

can be categorized as either secrets that are unknown to the reader or secrets

that unknown to the characters. In "King Lear", the secrets are kept

from the characters. As in many great tragedies, it is the secrets in

Shakespeare’s "King Lear" that cause the tragedy to occur. In the

first scene of "King Lear", Lear tells his youngest daughter that

"nothing will come of nothing", referring to her refusal to profess

her love for him, but unfortunately for him, he was dead wrong. Lear refuses to

recognize that his two eldest daughters are evil and only his youngest truly

loves him. This is the secret in the story; the two older daughters hide their

wickedness behind a mask of kind words, and Lear allows the secret to remain a

secret, by his unwillingness to accept the fact that his daughters do not love

him. What follows plunges Lear into the depths of hell, and then through his

eventual realization of this secret, he is able to redeem himself. Shakespeare

writes this story in a manner that the reader understands the cause of Lear’s

problems, but Lear himself does not. This draws the reader into the story

because the reader knows that Lear’s actions will lead to his downfall. As the

story progresses the reader begins feeling very sympathetic towards Lear,

because they understand the failure of Lear to expose the secret. Without the

secret, however, a lot of heartbreak would have been saved, but there would have

been no story. For it is the secret and the subsequent heartbreak that draws the

reader into the story. The overall effect of this secret is crucial to the

development of the tragedy. This technique is seen in many tragedies. In "Oepidus

Rex", the secret during this story is that Oedipus married his mother and

killed his father, in" Romeo and Juliet" it is their secret love, and

in "Desire Under the Elms" it is that the son is the secret father of

his father’s baby. The secret aspect in all of these stories aid in the mystery

and also the horror. The secrets in "King Lear" set the story in

perpetual motion, and aid in the effect and overall impression the story has on

the reader. As seen in many tragedies the secretive element creates the story,

fuels the plot, and sets the stage for the tragedy to occur. As the secret is

exposed and the heartbreak occurs, the tragedy unfolds. The reader’s knowledge

of the secret draws them into the story allowing them to see the classic

struggle between good and evil.