Essay on "Truth and Lies in King Lear William"

Essay 5 pages (1520 words) Sources: 2

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Truth and Lies in King Lear

William Shakespeare's play, King Lear, teaches us that we are never to old to learn lessons about life. In his old age, King Lear experiences painful moments but they help him become a better man. These lessons teach him incredible lessons about love and loyalty that allow him to appreciate life more than he ever has. This is significant because Lear is such a rotten character at the beginning of the play. When Shakespeare introduces us to him, Lear behaves like a spoiled child. In a sense, the twist of fate he experiences is deserved because he must learn the truth about his children. He must lose all he owns to learn what true love feels like and while this is a harsh lesson, it becomes important to him because it opens his eyes. Gloucester, too, learns an important lesson about the word family and love. Both men learn important lessons about life and people in general. One lesson is revolves around a lack of clarity. Another lesson is that sometimes we must lose almost everything to see the value in life. The truth is clearer when there is less stuff in our lives.

Lear changes from being a spoiled brat to a loving father. He pays for thinking he could buy love or force his children to honor him. His wrongdoing in life is his ego paired with his selfishness. All his wealth does not make him an educated man. However, losing that wealth does. Lear does not accept responsibility for his actions primarily because he does not think he needs to do so. He believes his wealth protect him from some of life's more unpleasant moments. However, what he learns is that it is never too late to learn a valuable lesson about life. He says, "All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue, and all foes / The cup of their deserving." (V.iii.363 -- 5). Lear learns how foolish he is with his family because they teach him people are not always what they seem. He treats Cordelia, the daughter that actually loves him, with disdain and banishes her from his kingdom when she cannot feign affection. Lear learns the value of everything once he looses it. Death forces Lear to change because it forces him to place some sort of value on his life. This new perspective forces Lear to see Cordelia in a different light. He states, "Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, / And thou no breath at all?" (Shakespeare V.iii.307-8). Goneril and Regan are not who Lear thinks they are and they force him to change how he looks at things. He tells Cordeila:

We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down

And ask forgiveness. So we'll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

. . . And take upon's the mystery of things. (V.iii.10-12, 17).

Here we see how the man changes. He no longer places importance on wealth.

Gloucester makes mistakes and one of the most significant is banishing Edgar. Like Lear, he sees what he wants to see rather than taking a step back and looking at the situation with a logical mind. Like Cordelia, Edgar rises to the occasion and reveals his love for his father when we might think he would not. Edgar tells his father the gods saved him (IV.vi.72) and for this reason, he should "bear free and patient thoughts" (IV.vi.79). He we see the triumph of good over evil. Edgar shows us how loss and suffering do not need to break us. Edgar never lost his compassion and becomes the hero of the play. Hardship transforms him into a strong man. Edmund is the villain, acting on behalf of his own selfish needs.

When we look at King Lear, we see how much society has not changed after centuries of living. The wealthy still seem to live in a world that is different from the common man and sometimes the wealthy act foolishly, just as King Lear did. One of the most amazing things about this play and his behavior is the fact that families are not exempt from dysfunctional behavior. We see how money does buy everything the way many wealthy think it does. Lear thinks he can buy love and loyalty from his children but people are simply too complicated and selfish for that. Lear hopes he can pay his daughters to look after him in his old age so he gives them everything. Gloucester has a similar problem because he fails to see what is going on around him. Gloucester begins to see once his sight is removed. We can look at this lesson and know that what we see is not always the "truth." A.C. Bradley writes Shakespeare "opposes the presence and the influence of evil not by any transcendental denial of evil, but by the presence of human virtue, fidelity, and self-sacrificial love" (Bradley). We see this technique unfold in the lives of King Lear, Cordelia, Gloucester and Edgar,

King Lear also demonstrates how family does not always behave the way we think it should. This is a sad truth about humankind, as we watch King Lear's daughters behave the way they do. This makes it more painful to see him mistreat Cornelia. However, Lear was blinded by his selfishness and his desire. He wanted things to be a certain way for his later years in life and while this is not a bad thing in any sense, it is terrible how Lear feels he must make it happen. Gloucester also wants things to be a certain way and it would seem that his desire is not unreasonable. However, Edmund makes sure to think of himself first to mess things up a bit. Parents cannot always guess what their children are going to do next and while they might think they have some sort of control in their children's lives, they do not. I fact, familial ties only tend to make things worse for many. Some children are not loyal they way parents think they should be. Children grow up and make up their owns minds about who they are and how much they owe their parents. As we see from this play, parents and children rarely think alike. This realization makes relationships precarious at best. Parents do not control their children regardless of how much money they have and regardless of hoe money they give their children.

King Lear reveals the stupidity of people who think they can buy everything. Wealth changes people but it is not the only thing that leads people to make foolish decisions. It seems people tend to think they can buy many things that are simply not for sale, like love and honor. At some point, people seem to think they are above the law or they simply do not live by the same natural laws of the universe that the rest of society does. Whatever the reason people see their lives differently, they forget they cannot buy what we all actually want, which is love. Life is complicated because many people do not always do the thing we expect them to do. Selfishness reigns at every social level. It is incredibly foolish to believe that one can buy love or loyalty and it is foolish to think that everyone loves with a blind eye. Every human being is born selfish; some control it better than others. In Shakespeare's play, we see how easily this kind of selfishness erodes personalities. Money will not buy the kind of loyalty that lives within the good heart. It may buy a certain amount of loyalty but that loyalty is not… READ MORE

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