Shaklear Essay, Research Paper

King Lear, by William Shakespeare, is a tragic tale of filialconflict, personal transformation, and loss. The story revolvesaround the King who foolishly alienates his only truly devoteddaughter and realizes too late the true nature of his other twodaughters. A major subplot involves the illegitimate son ofGloucester, Edmund, who plans to discredit his brother Edgar andbetray his father. With these and other major characters in theplay, Shakespeare clearly asserts that human nature is eitherentirely good, or entirely evil. Some characters experience atransformative phase, where by some trial or ordeal their natureis profoundly changed. We shall examine Shakespeare’s stand onhuman nature in King Lear by looking at specific characters inthe play: Cordelia who is wholly good, Edmund who is whollyevil, and Lear whose nature is transformed by the realization ofhis folly and his descent into madness. The play begins with Lear, an old king ready for retirement,preparing to divide the kingdom among his three daughters. Learhas his daughters compete for their inheritance by judging whocan proclaim their love for him in the grandest possiblefashion. Cordelia finds that she is unable to show her lovewith mere words:”Cordelia. [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love, and be silent.” Act I, scene i, lines 63-64.Cordelia’s nature is such that she is unable to engage in evenso forgivable a deception as to satisfy an old king’s vanity andpride, as we see again in the following quotation:”Cordelia. [Aside] Then poor cordelia! And not so, since I am sure my love’s More ponderous than my tongue. ” Act I, Scene i, lines 78-80.Cordelia clearly loves her father, and yet realizes that herhonesty will not please him. Her nature is too good to alloweven the slightest deviation from her morals. An impressivespeech similar to her sisters’ would have prevented muchtragedy, but Shakespeare has crafted Cordelia such that shecould never consider such an act. Later in the play Cordelia,now banished for her honesty, still loves her father anddisplays great compassion and grief for him as we see in thefollowing: “Cordelia. O my dear father, restoration hang Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss Repair those violent harms that my two sisters Have in reverence made.” Act IV, Scene vii, lines 26-29. Cordelia could be expected to display bitterness or evensatisfaction at her father’s plight, which was his own doing.However, she still loves him, and does not fault him for theinjustice he did her. Clearly, Shakespeare has crafted Cordeliaas a character whose nature is entirely good, unblemished by anytrace of evil throughout the entire play. As an example of one of the wholly evil characters in the play,we shall turn to the subplot of Edmund’s betrayal of his fatherand brother. Edmund has devised a scheme to discredit hisbrother Edgar in the eyes of their father Gloucester. Edmund isfully aware of his evil nature, and revels in it as seen in thefollowing quotation:”Edmund. This is the excellent foppery of the world,that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeitsof our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disastersthe sun, the moon, and stars; as if we werevillains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;knaves, thieves, and treachers by sphericalpredominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers byan enforced obedience of planetary influence; andall that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on. … I should have been that Iam, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled

on my bastardizing.”Act I, scene ii, lines 127-137, 143-145. Clearly, Edmund recognizes his own evil nature and decides touse it to his advantage. He mocks the notion of any kind ofsupernatural or divine influence over one’s destiny. Edgar mustgo into hiding because of Edmund’s deception, and later Edmundbetrays Gloucester himself, naming him a traitor which resultsin Gloucester’s eyes being put out. Edmund feels not theslightest remorse for any of his actions. Later on, after theinvading French army has been repelled, Lear and Cordelia havebeen taken captive and Edmund gives these chilling words to hiscaptain: “Edmund. Come hither captain; hark. Take thou this note: go follow them to prison; One step I have advanced thee; if thou dost As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way To noble fortunes: know thou this, that men Are as the time is: to be tender-minded Does not become a sword: thy great employment Will not bear question; either say thou’lt do’t, Or thrive by other means.” Act V, scene iii, lines 27-34. Edmund has just instructed his captain to take Lear and Cordeliaaway to prison and to kill them, and make it look like suicide.Obviously there is no limit to the depths of Edmund’s evil.Shakespeare has created a perfect villain, with no remorse, nocompassion, and who is universally despised by readers of theplay. In the end, mortally wounded, Edmund does regret hisactions and attempts to undo some of the hurt he has caused, andso perhaps we could also say Edmund is one of the characters whoundergoes a transformation in the end. However, up until thatpoint, Edmund remains a classic villain, whose human nature isentirely evil. At the beginning of the play, we see Lear as a proud, vain,quick-tempered old king, not necessarily evil, but certainly notgood. His folly leads to the alienation of his one truly lovingdaughter Cordelia, and the revelation that Regan and Goneril’sprofession of love for him were mere empty words. Turned awayby both Regan and Goneril, Lear rails against the storm andscreams “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.” (Act III,scene ii, lines 56,57). Here Lear still believes he is thevictim; and yet there is some admission on his part that he hassome guilt in the matter. After the storm, when Lear’s madnesshas run its course, both he and Cordelia are taken prisoner byAlbany’s army. We see the full effect of Lear’s transformationin his joy at his reunion with his daughter, uncaring of hisstatus as a prisoner: “He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven, And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes; The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell, Ere they shall make us weep. We’ll see ‘em starved first.” Act V, scene iii lines 22-25This new carefree Lear is certainly a far cry from the arrogantking we saw at the beginning of the play. His joy atreconciliation with his daughter outweighs any other concerns hemight have. Shakespeare has transformed Lear in the reader’seyes from a hateful old king into almost a grandfatherly, lovingfigure. It is not necessarily a transformation from evil intogood; rather it is a transformation from blindness into sight. In King Lear, we have seen that Shakespeare has carefullycrafted the characters and clearly defined their human naturesas being good or evil. There is no doubting the absolutegoodness that Cordelia maintains throughout the play, and thesheer evil that Edmund displays until his plans are in ruins.In Lear we see a flawed figure who by misfortune and lossfinally comes to revelation and personal transformation. Inthat sense, these characters are perfect tragic figures, perhapsnot necessarily realistic but powerful and moving nonetheless.