King Lear

King Lear
By William Shakespeare

FOOL
Prithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman
or a yeoman?


LEAR
A king, a king!


FOOL

No, he's a yeoman that has a gentleman to his son, for he's
a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.


With these lines in Act 3 Scene 6, we can therefore see that King Lear was totally insane and admit the fact that he is crazy. He is crazy in the sense that he enslaved himself from power of language and language of power. Those two themes in the drama really made this story evolved. But before I proceed with these two meaningful themes let us first try to see why King Lear was entitled "King Lear" and why the story or novel by the great William Shakespeare is considered as a tragedy.
First, King Lear was entitled as King Lear because it simply discussed about the struggles and sufferings of the legendary King Lear. We can see how King Lear, who gave more importance to the outside love than the definition of love Cordelia wanted to imply, fell from the fascinating words of his two wicked daughters, Goneril and Regan. He, then, realized his own mistakes with the help of Fool who is the wisest character in the play and the only character who understands the motivations of Lear, his daughters, and other characters. He constantly ridicules Lear, the better to make the old man understand himself and the folly of his selfish, headstrong ways. We can see that King Lear managed to have realization but he failed to regain himself since he didn't stand up again and be a good king but rather remained insane and didn't recover from it brought by his entrusting mistake to his two depraved daughters.

Second, why King Lear was considered as one of Shakespeare's tragedy? First, Shakespeare dramatized the destructive consequences of a single choice and action by the main character. The rash, impetuous Lear created his own destiny when he gave away his land, his title, and his loving youngest daughter. By the end of the first scene Lear’s abdication and division of the kingdom had already begun to have disastrous consequences. As the drama unfolds, Lear’s family and his realm are ruined as a result of his irresponsible course of action. Well, second, this story is quiet tragic in the sense that it Shakespeare really gave us the clear scenes of violence such as what happen to Act 3 Scene 7 where Gloucester eyes were plucked out and the death of most of the major characters such as King Lear itself, Cordelia, Regan, Goneril and many more. So, the story of King Lear gave us the scenes of a royal family fall to doom because of betrayal with each other. We can see here in King Lear that terror reaches its utmost height and the sense of compassion is exhausted. The principal characters here are not those who act, but those who suffer. King Lear itself who should enjoy the moment as the lead character suffered a lot in the story and really the story gave us the picture of a calamity in which the sudden blows of fate became not fair for King Lear.

We can also see a "rise and fall" plot where King Lear was a known powerful king before but then became weak when he entrusted Goneril and Regan who tricked him because of their desire to be in the power. We can also see this kind of action to Cordelia, Edgar and Gloucester in which they all enjoyed their position before and living peacefully with their families but this all end up because of the villains' desire for power.

We can also see a mirror and intersecting actions towards the characters which really made the scenario a dramatic tragedy. We can see the similarities of King Lear and Gloucester in which both of them were father and gullible in the story. They both have good and bad daughters and sons in which they ended up trusting the wrong daughters or son and leave their good son and daughter in doom. They both realized their weakness and mistakes when they actually suffered from a certain ailment in which King Lear suffered insanity while Gloucester suffered blindness. Edmund and the two daughters of King Lear, Goneril and Regan were almost the same in the story in which they both betrayed their fathers because of their craving to power. They both used the power of their language to actually woo and get the attention of their fathers and made the other son and daughter's image worse in their father's face. But the story also has this contrast in which we can see it between Cordelia and her two evil sisters and between Edmund and Edgar. All of them used a certain power of their language but they are different in their purpose since the iniquitous daughters and son used their own flowering words to grab the power and actually betrayed their own father.
We can also see here in the story that this is considered as tragedy because the threefold dignity of a king, an old man, and a father, is dishonored by the cruel ingratitude of his unnatural daughters. The old king, who out of a foolish tenderness has given away everything, is driven out into the world a homeless beggar and the childish imbecility to which he was fast advancing changes into the wildest insanity, and when he is rescued from the destitution to which he was abandoned, it is too late. The kind consolations of filial care and attention and of true friendship are now lost on him; his bodily and mental powers are destroyed beyond hope of recovery, and all that now remains to him of life is the capability of loving and suffering beyond measure. At the first scene we can see that he wanted to find for his daughters filial love but because of his different definition of it he ended up losing the daughter whom the love he wanted was with her. So instead of a mere happy ending, this story ended up in a tragic way in which most of the characters died.
So when did the power of language emerged in the scenes? We can first see it on the first act in which King Lear, a dotty 80-year-old ruler of ancient Britain, announces that he will retire from the throne and divide his kingdom among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan and Cordelia. The foolish, self-centered old man declares that the daughter who loves him the most will receive the biggest share of his property. Then he will live with each daughter in turn, one month at a time. The avaricious Goneril and Regan declare that their love for their father knows no bounds. Lear is much pleased. But when he asks his favorite daughter what she can say to win the richest share of his kingdom, she replies, “Nothing, my lord” .Surprised and disappointed, Lear presses Cordelia, the only daughter who truly loves her father. We can therefore see with these scenes the two scenarios of proving the power of language. First, in Goneril and Regan's words in which they used their flowering utterances just to win the heart of their father even their speeches were not really meant for the king. Second, in Cordelia's word of "Nothing" in which it brought a dreadful effect to his father and made her be out of the family and the kingdom itself. Telling the truth can deeply wound the listener as well as the speaker. Cordelia wins my admiration because she is forthright and sincere. However, her honesty offended her father, and he disowned her. The Earl of Kent, a loyal subject of Lear, suffered banishment too for speaking up for Cordelia. And he ended up in disguise just to help King Lear with all his hear.On the lighter part about King Lear's daughter, it was nice that these things happened to Cordelia because she had the chance to find true love with the Duke of France and made her father realized his own fault. We can also see the power of language with Edmund's words in which he made Gloucester gullible enough to banish his own son Edgar. Another character who pictured out this power of language is King Lear's Fool. We can see that because of his taunting riddles and insults to King Lear, the king managed to realize his own mistake and somehow manage to find for his own vengeance. But this Fool actually made the whole tragic story lightened up. Because of his presence, he somehow lessened the extremeness of the tragedy. But it was quiet noticeable that Fool only showed up when Cordelia was out of the scenes. It seemed to be that when Cordelia, who served as Lear's loving daughter, was send away by King Lear, Fool was there to help king. But Fool disappeared in the scenes where Cordelia and King Lear already met. Maybe he vanished because Cordelia was already there to help his father and Fool is not needed anymore.
Greed and lust for power really corrupt every characters in the story and bring about their downfall. It was best explained with Goneril, Regan and Edmund who all have their disguise just to get the power they want. Goneril, Regan and Edmund reject their own fathers in favor of material possessions and power. Ultimately, their cupidity results in their downfall.
King Lear showed a revelation of the emptiness of life and he failed to consider at least two things. First, there is an affirmation in those passages in which Lear comes, through heart-rending anguish, to see that he was not what he thought he was. Second, Lear's recognition was several times associated with love or charity, as when Lear invited the Fool to enter the hovel first and then confessed his guilt in having cared too little for humanity. And this care for humanity was seen in Cordelia and in the nameless servant who at the end of Act 3 Scene 7 promised to apply medicine to Gloucester’s eyeless sockets. No one would say that these actions turn King Lear into a happy vision, but it was perverse to ignore them and refused to see that in this story, love humanizes as surely as egoism dehumanizes. If the novel dramatized man’s desolation, it also dramatized the love that, while providing no protection against pain or death, made man’s life different from the life of a dog, a horse or a rat.

In our life, we don't need words just to describe our love for someone. As what my father always say when he was still alive, "Hindi kailangan ng salita para mapakita ang tunay na pagmamahal kasi ang gawa ay mas matimbang sa salita" ("Words are useless in showing true love because actions weigh more than words"). Every people need to find love that is pure and sincere without words itself because words are sometimes half meant and lie. Just like King Lear, it is better to check if your daughter loves you not by merely asking her how much she loves you but rather observe on her actions. In this way, you can avoid the possibilities of losing service and love from the person whom you love the most.