Exile In King Lear

“Exile is not a time frame. Exile is an experience. It's a sentiment.”- Marco Rubio. This quote goes hand in hand with Edward Said’s critique on exile. It states that through exile, you learn something new and gain experience as you go on through the journey. In the novel King Lear, William Shakespeare highlights exile in the protagonist, Lear. Though Lear’s exile proved detrimental at first, it ultimately gave him enriching experiences that led to moral maturity. Lear’s exile in the novel proved to be detrimental at first. Once his daughter’s exiled him from the kingdom, Lear and the Fool find themselves outside in a fierce storm. The turning point for Lear is when he is outside in the storm. It is through his anger over his last confrontation with his "family" and the power of the storm that begin the process of change within Lear.

He expresses his anger at the storm by trying to tell the storm to be even more fierce to him. Lear says that since those who owe him everything are so harmful to him, why shouldn't the storm which owes him nothing be any less? Here he starts to notice that he isn’t the “Fierce King” everyone thinks he is. On the contrary, he sees himself as a poor, weak man. After this, Lear begins another change, and that is thinking of others instead of just himself. This first person, is the Fool. Lear worries if the fool is cold out in the storm, and begins to see how precious necessities can be if you suddenly are without them. He starts to understand how important the small things around you