King Lear :: Literary Analysis, Shakespeare

...the error of age is to believe that experience is a easement for intelligence. (Lyman Bryson) In the play King Lear by William Shakespeare, such an idea is explored. Lear is a King who is physically aged but as the play progresses, it becomes crap that he lacks the intelligence which usually accompanies it. The play is set in a time where the King was equal to God himself, he was set obscure from the common man as some(a)what of a transcended being. Shakespeare breaks this unspoken consanguinity through the events of his play. Lears rash decision to banish his loving girl Cordelia and hand total power of his male monarchdom over to two his unthoughtful daughters, Goneril and Regan sets of a chain of events which send him on a downward whorled to become the basest of human beings. Shakespeare uses the characters of the shoot, Cordelia, Kent and Goneril as well as irony, foreshadowing, and diction to impersonate Lear as nothing more than an unseeing old human being.The Foo l is a character in the play who is the embodiment of Lears sense of right and wrong and through him, the audience is able to witness the pampering of the King. His name bears quite a significant irony as throughout the play it is do apparent that it is the Fool who is the wiser. He states that, this fellow banished two ons daughters, and did the third a blessing against his will (1,4,101-103) The Fool lays bare the folly Lear in not recognising the worth of a true daughter up to now through his foolish act, he has done Cordelia good. In a vogue this irony of the Fool foreshows the future judgement of this judgemental monarch. In the play it is Cordelia who is banished and the some other two who have blessings poured on them, but the Fool provides the audience with a different perspective on this matter one, which is increasingly unapparent to the hurt King who is quick to continue his living in denial, stating that, All This is nothing, Fool (1,4 127) Shakespeares placement of the Fools as Lears conscience allows the audience to feel the emotions which the king should be experiencing. In the event of Cordelias banishing the Fool hath much pinned by (1,4,71-72) Shakespeare shows the Fools sadness to contrast with the apparent lack of some in the King. This also evokes audience empathy. Through the Fool Shakespeare is able to necessitate to the reader the apparent folly of a vain King and the outrageousness of his folly.