Essay Comparing King Lear And Frankenstein

How can people’s personal flaws lead to their own destruction? In William Shakespeare's King Lear and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, the main characters, Lear and Frankenstein, both as tragic heroes, fall as a result of their own careless actions. Lear and Frankenstein had to die in order to come to epiphanies about their situations and the impact that their own actions have on their lives. Shakespeare and Shelley communicate that one must face a downfall in order to realize his own flaws and the truths of his reality.
Lear becomes blinded by his flaws, leading him to make irrational decisions which ultimately cause him to go mad. After Cordelia is unable to state how much she loves her father and outdo her sisters exaggerated professions of

love like Lear wants her to, he states, “I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity, and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me Hold thee from this forever” (Shakespeare 15). Lear’s pride causes him to be blind to the sincerity of his daughters’ false flattery and love. He cares more about hearing how well they could profess their love to him rather than if the love is real or not, making him unable to see their ingenuine motives. His pride in wanting to be praised led to Lear’s horrible error in judgement, irrationally banishing Cordelia due to her inability to compliment Lear to his expectations. Cordelia’s expectations of inheritance becomes destroyed as Lear displays his value in appearance, basing it on the depth of their love to him, versus reality, in which she could not possibly love her father that grand when she has to be devoted to her husband as well, making her life more difficult as she is left to deal with her unjust banishment. He begins to realize the faults of his own actions after being mistreated by Goneril and states, “O most small fault, How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show...Beat at this gate that let thy folly in And they dear judgement out” (Shakespeare 59). After Goneril acts disrespectfully to her father in demanding that he reduce the number of his knights and threatens him, Lear finally starts to realize how wrong he was to banish Cordelia. He becomes aware of his own flaws as he admits that in letting his foolish pride take over his decisions, it had ultimately caused him to turn a blind eye on his good sense of judgement. His realization comes too late, however, as his daughters’ betrayal in mistreating him drives him out of their care, forcing him to take shelter out in the storm, descending into madness because he is ultimately left with nothing. He had been too prideful to know love and loyalty when he sees them. His subjection to an undefined status had not only been the result of his pride and banishing Cordelia, but also his choice in dividing up his kingdom.
After banishing Cordelia, Lear’s irrational and prideful decision to divide up his kingdom results in his destruction.

With Cordelia declared as banished, Lear states, “With my two daughters’ dowers digest the third...Only we shall retain The name and all th’ addition to a king. The sway, revenue, execution of the rest, Beloved sons, be yours” (Shakespeare 17). Lear’s fault here is that he believes that he can divide up his kingdom to his daughters and still retain the title as king; he wants to retire his position and responsibilities as a king but still remain respected and treated as one. His flaw in wanting to be superior leads to his downfall, as he is so blinded by his greed that he decides to divide up his kingdom to his two daughters who are as hungry for power as he is. They only want to strip him of his position and respect to gain more influence. Lear, not realizing the impact of such an impulsive decision, descends into madness when his daughters force him out of his home. After being locked out of his only shelter by his daughters, he states, “Filial ingratitude!...In such a night To shut me out?...O Regan, Goneril, Your old kind father whose frank heart gave all! O that way madness lies. Let me shun that; No more of that” (Shakespeare 137). Lear becomes fully aware of the consequences of his actions. He realizes how ungrateful his daughters are and how they have treated him unfairly even though he has given them everything; much to his dismay, he is left with

nothing in return. His destruction and undoing results from the loss of his identity as a king. From being a person with ultimate power as a king to suddenly losing everything, Lear not only loses his identity but his mind as his realization of his daughter's betrayal has left him in despair. When both of his daughters reject him and casts him out, leaving him to venture off in the storm by himself, he realizes how he had made the mistake in giving power to evil beings and banishing the daughter who conveyed the truest love to him. Believing that the daughters would love and care for him, he becomes ultimately stripped of his self confidence as he had to experience the horror in confronting the reality of how he was deserted and lost his power in being king by the ones he thought to have love him the most. By stripping him of his power, Lear became exposed to the truths of his reality and how the results of his own actions led him to where his current state is, leaving him weak and powerless. Lear has not been the only character to have experienced the tragic falls as a tragic hero, as Frankenstein undergoes it as well.
Driven by his passions, Frankenstein makes an impulsive decision to create a monster which results in his own destruction.

As Frankenstein is enroute to his pursuit of gaining more knowledge, he states, “I wished, as it were, to procrastinate all that related to my feelings of affection until the great object, which swallowed up every habit of my nature, should be completed” (Shelley 41). Frankenstein’s decision in allowing his intellectual ambitions to overpower everything else in his life leads him to be blinded to the dangers of creating life. He isolates himself from his society when creating the monster, letting himself be immersed in his creation while being driven by his passions, allowing nobody to be near him. The fact that he allows this creation of a monster to consume his total being reveals how blinded he is to the immorality of stepping outside the boundaries of science and defying nature. His goal in striving to achieve what wants to in placing man over nature makes him lose his sense of self as all he is focused on is the final product of his creation. He starts to realize his own faults as after he has created the monster, he becomes very ill and states, “The form of the monster on whom I had bestowed existence was forever before my eyes, and I raved incessantly concerning him” (48). His impulsive decision to make the monster leads him to abhorring it as it does not turn out to be what he has expected. Because he chooses to isolate himself in creating the

monster, he ends up creating a hideous creature that he can not stand to look at. He falls ill as he now becomes haunted by its ugliness, causing him to be conscious of where the monster is in the society as he feels his presence around him everywhere he goes. He becomes engulfed with the feelings of guilt and despair after realizing what he has done is terribly wrong. Frankenstein compounds his first impulsive decision by making a second of abandoning the monster.
Frankenstein’s decision to abandon his creation after bringing it to life causes the monster to be the result of his own undoing. After being rejected when he saved someone, Frankenstein expresses his thoughts as, “The feelings of kindness and gentleness which I had entertained but a few moments before gave place to hellish rage and gnashing of teeth. Inflamed by pain, I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind” (130). Frankenstein’s abandonment of his own creation causes the monster to become an actual monster despite how he was initially compassionate toward others. Due to his creator's lack of responsibility, he felt rejected from both him and society when he has done nothing wrong to them and resorted to causing misery to those who made him miserable. Frankenstein’s denial in the beginning of his own creation causes the monster to swear vengeance on him and his society by creating destruction to it. Because he did not raise the monster with love and care and did not help the monster conform to his society, but instead chooses to abandon it, he is left to deal with the unjust murders of his loved ones. He does not want to fully accept that he had created such an ugly monster and avoids being the one responsible for it even after being confronted by the monster thus leading to his own fall. After Frankenstein loses everyone he loves, he vows that, “Never will I give up my search until he or I perish; and then with what ecstasy shall I join my Elizabeth and my departed friends” (196). His sole purpose in continuing to live at this point is to destroy the monster and relieve himself and his society from his destructive acts. His realization of how much destruction his creation could produce causes him to fall in his pursuit of vengeance on the monster. He realizes his own faults too late as by this point, the monster has more power over him and continues to live on society, knowing that it is killing Frankenstein with the thought of that. Frankenstein’s unchecked ambitions results in his inability to see how dangerous pursuing knowledge is and how his belief that he could change how nature is beyond his control leads him into his own fall.
Through Lear and Frankenstein’s death, Shakespeare and Shelley reveals how, in order for them to realize the truths of their situations in life and the impact of what their own actions have on their lives, that they had to experience a downfall and eventually die to do so; also communicating how one must face a downfall to realize their own flaws and the truths of his reality. Lear and Frankenstein both possessed traits that became their flaws which resulted in their own undoings. Their flaws blinded both to the consequences of their irrational and impulsive actions. The late realization of how destructive their decisions were led to their downfall and death as they could not handle the repercussions of their own faults. By taking responsibility and being mindful of one’s actions, one could easily avoid a situation in which they end up regretting.