The Importance Of Evil And Evil In William Shakespeare's King Lear

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Throughout William Shakespeare’s works, one can see what true evil is such as Macbeth and Richard III. Shakespeare portrayed evil in his works to make the world aware that evil exists everywhere you look. For instance in Macbeth, Macbeth killed MacDuff and blamed it on his servants, and in King Lear Goneril kills her sister, Regan. As the story of King Lear unfolds, a tale of evil and villainy is shown to the audience. Many characters can be separated respectively in groups of good and evil, evil outweighing the good. The lust for power is the backbone of the story and is the ultimate reason for the downfall of the characters involved. Evil characters are domineering at the beginning of the play, and soon the good begin to be on top. …show more content…

Shakespeare makes Goneril stand out among the others as the worst villain of King Lear. “Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?” (4.2.40). “Shakespeare went one better in this play--its deep-cutting violence is committed by the pelican daughters [Goneril]” (Liebler 7). This excerpt refers to Goneril as being more of a tiger rather than a human and Albany even goes as far to refer to Goneril as a “monster” also (4.2.59-61). Shakespeare portrays her character having a lack of humanity that is more of an animal rather than a daughter. In Act 3, Goneril orders for Gloucester’s eyes to be removed, being only another example of her …show more content…

“The image of family life in the play represents a different story of experience” (McFarland 3). There was not a happy ending to King Lear and I believe Shakespeare used this to show people that evil does exist in the world. He also shows that when the allocation of power arises, people will go to above and beyond to get what they want. Goneril’s lust for power was satisfied from scene one, but the lust she had for Edmund never was satisfied—even until her death. “Goneril and Regan are vicious and unfaithful to each other” and Goneril is the one who turns on her sister and the alliance they both had in scene one was destroyed (Cohen 5). Through reading King Lear the audience is able to see how Goneril was willing to give up her kingdom for the desires of a man that was not faithful to her. Shakespeare shows the reader that eventually, evil will turn upon

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