King Lear

King Lear, by William Shakespeare, is a tragic tale of filial

conflict, personal transformation, and loss. The story revolves

around the King who foolishly alienates his only truly devoted

daughter and realizes too late the true nature of his other two

daughters. A major subplot involves the illegitimate son of

Gloucester, Edmund, who plans to discredit his brother Edgar and

betray his father. With these and other major characters in the

play, Shakespeare clearly asserts that human nature is either

entirely good, or entirely evil. Some characters experience a

transformative phase, where by some trial or ordeal their nature

is profoundly changed. We shall examine Shakespeare's stand on

human nature in King Lear by looking at specific characters in

the play: Cordelia who is wholly good, Edmund who is wholly

evil, and Lear whose nature is transformed by the realization of

his folly and his descent into madness.

The play begins with Lear, an old king ready for retirement,

preparing to divide the kingdom among his three daughters. Lear

has his daughters compete for their inheritance by judging who

can proclaim their love for him in the grandest possible

fashion. Cordelia finds that she is unable to show her love

with mere words:

"Cordelia. [Aside] What shall Cordelia speak? Love,

and be silent."

Act I, scene i, lines 63-64.

Cordelia's nature is such that she is unable to engage in even

so forgivable a deception as to satisfy an old king's vanity and

pride, as we see again in the following quotation:

"Cordelia. [Aside] Then poor cordelia!

And not so, since I am sure my love's

More ponderous than my tongue. "

Act I, Scene i, lines 78-80.

Cordelia clearly loves her father, and yet realizes that her

honesty will not please him. Her nature is too good to allow

even the slightest deviation from her morals. An impressive

speech similar to her sisters' would have prevented much

tragedy, but Shakespeare has crafted Cordelia such that she

could never consider such an act. Later in the play Cordelia,

now banished for her honesty, still loves her father and

displays great compassion and grief for him as we see in the

following:

"Cordelia. O my dear father, restoration hang

Thy medicine on my lips, and let this kiss

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters

Have in reverence made."

Act IV, Scene vii, lines 26-29.

Cordelia could be expected to display bitterness or even

satisfaction at her father's plight, which was his own doing.

However, she still loves him, and does not fault him for the

injustice he did her. Clearly, Shakespeare has crafted Cordelia

as a character whose nature is entirely good, unblemished by any

trace of evil throughout the entire play.

As an example of one of the wholly evil characters in the play,

we shall turn to the subplot of Edmund's betrayal of his father

and brother. Edmund has devised a scheme to discredit his

brother Edgar in the eyes of their father Gloucester. Edmund is

fully aware of his evil nature, and revels in it as seen in the

following quotation:

"Edmund. This is the excellent foppery of the world,

that when we are sick in fortune, often the surfeits

of our own behaviour, we make guilty of our disasters

the sun, the moon, and stars; as if we were

villains on necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion;

knaves, thieves, and treachers by spherical

predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers by

an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and

all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.

... I should have been that I

am, had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled

on my bastardizing."

Act I, scene ii, lines 127-137, 143-145.

Clearly, Edmund recognizes his own evil nature and decides to

use it to his advantage. He mocks the notion of any kind of

supernatural or divine influence over one's destiny. Edgar must

go into hiding because