King Lear Research Paper

The idea of justice and equality within a culture is one of extreme importance. Not only is criminal justice important to a society, but moral equality is essential to the welfare of a civilization as well. William Shakespeare’s play, King Lear, centers on the theme of justice, or rather injustice, in the world. The foolish King Lear must navigate through a society in which the only way there can ever be justice is when humans behave justly toward each other, which very rarely happens. King Lear takes place in a world where “justice is anything but constant, and fortitude, prudence, and temperance are called into question” (Graham n.pag.). Without the help of any divine force, the existentialist characters in William Shakespeare's King

Lear must create their own fate while living in an unjust world.
The theme of justice, or rather injustice, begins early in the book, when King Lear starts to divide up his land between his daughters, Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. Regan and Goneril both flatter their father with empty praise that they don’t mean. When Lear asks Cordelia to confess her love for him, she replies “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave/ My heart into my mouth. I love your majesty/ According to my bond; no more nor less” (Shakespeare 1.1.90-93). Though Cordelia speaks the truth and her sisters tell admiring lies, King Lear disowns Cordelia but gives Regan and Goneril his land and power. Similarly, Gloucester has trouble discerning which one of his children he can trust. He thinks that Edgar, his older, legitimate son, is out to kill him and take all of his power, and that Edmund, his younger, illegitimate son, is a benefactor who is trying to help him. It turns out that the opposite is true, as Edmund’s plot to kill his father starts to unfold:
“Legitimate Edgar, I must have your land.
Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund
As to the legitimate. Fine word—’legitimate’!
Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed,
And my invention thrive, Edmund the base
Shall top the legitimate. I grow; I prosper.
Now, gods, stand up for bastards” (Shakespeare 1.2.16-22).
King Lear and Gloucester are put into nearly the same situation during the first act of the play. They both share the same character flaw of foolishness, and this indecisiveness as to which one of their children they can trust causes many problems throughout the remainder of the play.
From the beginning of the story, it’s clear that the play takes place in a society where “the gods have not only forgotten man; the gods seem dead.

The stars alone—the destroying planets who hate the human race—rule the world” (Stopford n.pag.). According to Seàn Lawrence’s essay, “the characters in the play create gods in their own images, but which fail them” (Lawrence n.pag.). Alongside that idea, the characters’ views of God, or any divine force for that matter, change many times throughout the play. For instance, the characters believe in and pray to an omniscient God early on in the play. Soon, though, they begin to realize that any divine justice that may have been present is no longer available. For example, when King Lear’s loyal servant, Kent, hears about Regan and Goneril’s plan to overthrow their father, he says “Fortune, good night. Smile once more. Turn thy wheel” (Shakespeare 2.2.165). Another instance of a character praying to a divine force for help is when Regan and her sister deny Lear to stay at their house. After fighting with his daughters, Lear questions “You see me here, you gods, a poor old man/ As full of grief as age, wretched in both (Shakespeare 2.4.263-264). Because his daughters refuse to let any of his servants stay with them, Lear is forced to wander around the kingdom while a fierce storm starts to brew. King Lear witnesses first hand the lack of both moral and divine justice in Act II of the play.

Clearly, King Lear draws many conclusions

about the injustice in which the world he lives during the third act of the play. Stuck out in the wide open during a terrible storm, Lear gives the following soliloquy:
“Rumble thy bellyful! Spit, fire! Spout, rain!
Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.
I tax not you, you elements, with unkindness.
I never gave you kingdom, called you children.
You owe me no subscription. Then let fall
Your horrible pleasure. Here I stand, your slave--
A poor, infirm, weak, and despised old man.
But yet I call you servile ministers,
That have with two pernicious daughters join
Your high engendered battles 'gainst a head
So old and white as this. O, ho, 'tis foul” (Shakespeare 3.2.14-24).
Lear realizes that Regan and Goneril never really loved him, and that Cordelia is the only daughter he could ever have trusted.

Lear yells to the gods and asks for retribution, which eventually does come. In the third act, Lear also says “I am a man/ More sinned against than sinning,” making the point that more people have wronged him than he has done to others. (Shakespeare 3.2.57-58). While out in the raging storm, King Lear has an epiphany about the amount of injustice and homelessness that appears in his kingdom, which is seen in his following speech:

“Poor naked wretches, whereso'er you are,

That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,

Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you

From seasons such as these? Oh, I have ta'en

Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp.

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux to them

And show the heavens more just” (Shakespeare

3.4.28-36).
Lear realizes that he didn’t do enough to stop the injustice that happened in his kingdom when he was king, and now that he wanders around as a homeless person during a terrible storm, he starts to feel pity for the people he ignored. Other acts of injustice are seen in Act III, like when Cornwall gouges out Gloucester’s eyes. After being blinded, Gloucester says “O my follies! Then Edgar was abused/ Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!” (Shakespeare 3.7.91-92). In yet another decree to the gods, Gloucester realizes his own foolishness and folly for choosing the wrong son to trust, and his literal blindness equally compares to his metaphorical blindness of his inability to see the truth about his sons. Obviously, King Lear realizes many injustices in his former kingdom after being kicked out of his daughters’ homes.
The idea of injustice within a society continues in Act IV of the play. After realizing the aftermath of his being blinded, Gloucester says “As flies to wanton boys, are we to th’ gods/ They kill us for their sport” (Shakespeare 4.1.39-40). In this simile, Gloucester compares the gods to immature and unjust children, and it’s one of the most recognized Shakespearean lines in history. At the beginning of the story, the characters pray to the gods in order to makes sense of the world around them. But, by this point in the play, they begin to realize that there either is no divine force that oversees the human race, or if the gods do exist, they don’t genuinely care about mankind. It is also important to note the characters that even attempt to pray to the gods. According to Frances Biscoglio, “the invocations to the gods say less about the gods than they do about the individual characters who utter them or do not utter them. Calling on the gods, in other words, acknowledging a transcendent power outside oneself, is a characteristic of all ‘good’ characters, and must therefore be seen as a spontaneous response of moral human beings” (Biscoglio n.pag.). That being said, King Lear, Gloucester, Kent, and Cordelia would be considered moral beings throughout the play because of their invocations to the gods, whereas Cornwall, Regan, and Goneril would be thought of as immoral not only because they never pray to any divine figure, but also their hurtful actions. Not all of the characters in the play give up hope on divine justice, though. For example, Kent says “It is the stars/ The stars above us, govern our conditions/ Else one self mate and mate could not beget/ such different issues,” meaning that fate makes us who we are. He says this in reference to Cordelia, because her nice and honest demeanor drastically varies from her sisters’ malicious behaviors. When Lear meets up with Cordelia at the end of the fourth act, he begs for her forgiveness, and expects her to still have a burning hatred for him, which is seen when he says:
“Be your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not.
If you have poison for me, I will drink it.
I know you do not love me, for your sisters
Have, as I do remember, done me wrong.
You have some cause; they have not” (Shakespeare 4.7.69-73).
To his surprise, Cordelia replies “no cause, no cause,” thus forgiving him for all of his wrongdoings (Shakespeare 4.7.74). Although some moral justice is seen in Act IV, the amount of injustice continues to grow, which contributes to the idea that King Lear takes place in an unfair world.