Tejada 1

Edgar Tejada

Mr. Rousseve

Shakespeare, Period 6

11 June 2009

False Dichotomy

Tragedy in the classical sense is the fall of great or respected individuals of society due

to a single, or a few, character flaws, and Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, is the quintessential,

unrelenting tragedy. King Lear, an aging king who wants all of the perks, but none of the ailing

responsibilities of being a king, decides during this 11th century to split his kingdom in three and

divide it between his three daughters. When he did so, he decided he would do so based upon

how fondly they professed their love to him. The first two, Goneril and Regan, did so with little

hesitance, but the third and unmarried one, Cordelia, did not and argued “I can only love and be

silent” (Lear I. i. 60). The lack of a quantifiable amount of praise upset King Lear, driving him to

banish her, perhaps his only loving heir. His level of vanity and cowardice in the face of years

more of responsibility ultimately leads to a great downfall. The play focuses on several aspects in

terms of how tragic Lear is, those being the facades people set up, the symbolism in eyes and

disguises , and the consistent and, on the surface, random reflections on the human state.

King Lear as a tragic figure is key. His own vanity (want of quantifiable praise), leads to

his own demise. The first issue with this precedent is the view of the time [as well as

Shakespeare’s time]. Kings and queens held onto power until their very deaths. Lear, however,

was a tired old king who wanted a quick and easy way out of his responsibilities, while hoping to

not lose the perks of being king. He was naïve in directly believing his daughters when they

simply claimed that they loved him. He also, quite foolishly, ignored the reality that was plainly
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given to him by Cordelia, Kent, and the Fool. Lear slowly falls from fits of rage after his most

beloved daughter failed to meet his expectations, to more rash actions like banishing Kent and

claiming an estate for himself with kingly privileges and 100 knights; after a stroke of anger,

however, he realizes his two “loving” daughters are slowly but surely draining his power, “[King

Lear to Regan] I gave you all--, [Regan] And in good time you gave it.” (II. iv. 242-3). Another

tragic figure is his counterpart, Gloucester, who also betrays unconditional love, his son Edgar,

for naively believing the trickery of his “illegitimate” son, Edmund. Edmund did the trickery

through a falsified letter which made his half-brother Edgar seem secretly treacherous and evil.

Gloucester’s case is a mirror of King Lear’s own tragedy. Edmund, however, is both aware of the

position of a bastard that he fills in the play, and argues against notions of predestination and that

“Tut, I should have been that I am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my

bastardizing.” (I. ii. 115-6). His father, Gloucester, easily facilitates Edmund’s premeditated

assault, but loses his very sight as a result.

The blinded Gloucester and the mad Lear realize their destination, Dover. Edgar, who has

assumed a new identity, much like Kent had done earlier, is assisting his blinded, roaming father.

Gloucester wants nothing more than freedom from his misery, the abyss, for “There is a cliff,

whose high and bending head…Bring me but to the very brim of it” (IV. i. 68-70). Edgar, going

under the assumed name “Tom,” appears to his father and King Lear. Lear is deeply reminded of

the sad human state, for “Thou owest the worm no silk, the beast no hide…no more but such a

poor bare, forked animal as thourt” (III. iv. 90-95). Separated from vain, quantifiable wealth,

gold, and glory, he feels the empty weight of the human state, beginning "Lear's descent into the

‘dark night of the soul’-moving into the inner consciousness; the last -a cadenza-marking Lear's

ascent to understanding, redemption, and finality" (Jackson 39). Humanity, as he sees in the
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disguised Edgar, creates these facades of power and glory, but in reality they are the same flesh

and blood animals before him that genuinely struggle to survive.

Symbolism and disguises are used though out King Lear as both plot devices and as

mediums through which Shakespeare conveys over-arching themes. The human eyes, both as a

physical organ and as the ability to perceive and discern reality, are constantly referred and

alluded to by characters in King Lear. A very gruesome seen within the play, the Earl of

Gloucester has his own eyes removed by Goneril and Cornwall, the later exclaiming “Lest it see

more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly!” (III. vii. 81). They then release the blinded Gloucester, who

loyally seeks King Lear and laments his legitimate son while Edgar is in his presence as “old

Tom.” Gloucester claimed that “I have no way, and therefore want no eyes. . .O dear son Edgar. .

. Might I but live to see thee in my touch, I'ld say I had eyes again!” (IV. i. 19-24). Disguises also

play a huge role in the outcome of the even of the plays. Two characters, Kent and Edgar, pose

as completely different people while honestly portraying an aspect of their own character to stay

close to the people they care about. The banished Kent returns to the service of King Lear under

the name Caius, who promises “to serve him truly that will put me in trust: to love him that is

honest” (I. iv. 13-5). Edgar’s disguise is even more interesting, however, because he not only

helps his father on his journey under the guise of “Old Tom,” but also helps open King Lear’s

eyes to the greater depth of reality by doing so. From the every beginning Edgar helps his

blinded father, leading him not to a cliff as his father wanted, but allowing him to think that one

was reached. It was under a disguise that Edgar brought justice to the biggest aggressor in the

play, Edmund, by challenging him to a duel, in which Edgar proclaimed “This sword, this arm,

and my best spirits, are bent To prove upon thy heart, whereto I speak, Thou liest,” (V. iii. 129-

30.) in regards to both of Edmund’s letters that incriminated Edgar and their father. While some
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may argue that King Lear is "[A] tragedy as an imitation of humanity's progress through

suffering, from ignorance to truth, from illusion to reality," it was through these partial-illusions

that characters reached greater truths.

The entirety of the play can more easily be summed up as “a study of total human exist-

ence” (Jackson 38). The play is unrelenting in cruelty to the bitter end, leaving the noble Cor-

delia, and the empowered but torn King Lear dead of a heart attack while he lamented the loss of

his daughter, for “Thou'lt come no more [Cordelia], Never, never, never, never, never! Pray you,

undo this button . . . [Dies].” (V. v. 61-3). Even the aggressors of the play, daughters Goneril and

Regan, suffer at the fault of their nature, killing each other, for “Your lady, sir, your lady: and her

sister By her is poisoned; she hath confess'd it.” (V. iii. 200-1). However, the play still has a level

of closure and redemption. Reality is returned as perception once those who bend it die, and

while the play is not too clear, either Edgar or Albany returns order to the kingdom.
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Work Cited

Jackson, Esther Merle. “King Lear: The Grammar of Tragedy” Shakespeare Quarterly 17. 1

(1966): 25-40. Folger Shakespeare Library. George Washington University. 05 Apr. 2009

<http://www.jstor.org/stable/2867602/>.

Shakespeare, William. King Lear. The Complete Works of William Shakespeare. MIT. 04 May

2009. <http://shakespeare.mit.edu/lear/full.html>.