Essay: Explore How False Appearances Discovered in William Shakespeare’s King Lear

William Shakespeare’s King Lear is a tragedy in which the aging ruler of Britain, King Lear, decides to step down from the throne and divide his kingdom evenly among his three daughters: Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia. In order to determine this, Lear asks them to proclaim their love for him. Goneril and Regan comply with this request with boastful and exaggerated claims but Cordelia remains silent. When confronted, her answer was not deemed good enough. Although Cordelia’s answer was the most honest, Lear misinterprets this lack of flattery as defiance and in a fit of rage, decides to divide the kingdom between Goneril and Regan; and disown Cordelia. However, Lear would come to regret this decision because Goneril and Regan have ulterior motives for the legacy he wants to leave behind. They only love the power that Lear has, not Lear himself. Goneril and Regan would do anything to not only get this power, but maintain it as well because they concoct the ultimate plan to undermine his authority—kill him. The eventual betrayal of not only one, but two people Lear believed loved him prove how detrimental the need for power can be. But it was ultimately Lear’s blindness that led to the downfall of his kingdom because from the moment he relinquished his throne, Goneril and Regan’s obsession with power caused the kingdom to spiral out of control and into chaos.
Age does not always come wisdom because initially, Lear valued appearances above reality. In his age, I thought one would be extremely conscious of the truth and the lies, the good and the evil. But because he has the role of king, his only concern is to be treated as such. He is so enamored with his power that he eventually becomes blind to the truth. Blindness can be a mental and emotional flaw as much as it can be a physical one because even though parents are supposed to know their children best, Lear intentionally ignored the true nature of his daughters for a brief moment in order to quench his ego. Goneril is the first one to state her case in lines 55 through 61 by saying that she loves her father “Dearer than eyesight, space, and liberty.” However, if she really did love him this much, should love have a set value in the first place? Besides, like eyesight, love can decay over time so overall, this was not an effective comparison. Regan is the second one to state her case and her speech sounds just as fraudulent. Cordelia is the last one to state her case in lines 89 through 95. Initially, she is silent but when confronted, she says that “Unhappy that I am, I cannot heave/ My heart into my mouth. I love your Majesty/ According to my bond; no more nor less.” Cordelia loves her father so much that she cannot even find the words to fathom it. She loves him and that is it. According to the bible, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” When compared to Cordelia’s unconditional and unwavering love, one can see that Goneril and Regan embody everything that love is not supposed to be. However, Lear ultimately decides to follow his mind instead of his heart and in lines 126 through 144, orders her to “avoid [his] sight.” Lear’s faithful and trusting servant, Earl of Kent, is the only one who disagreed with this act, but Lear decided to cloud his own judgement even further by banishing one of the few people in the kingdom who had clear insight.
Lear will later come to regret this decision. It did not take very long for Goneril and Regan to reveal their true selves. Once they did not need Lear anymore, they wanted to dispose of him. Even though they are related and even though they claimed to love him, it was all a ploy for power. This proves that sometimes family can be your worst enemy and that some people are only loyal to their need of you. Ironically, it is in Lear’s lowest point that he begins to see again. In lines 748 through 752, he states that: “Doth any here know me? This is not Lear./ Doth Lear walk thus? speak thus? Where are his eyes?/ Either his notion weakens, his discernings/ Are lethargied- Ha! waking? ‘Tis not so!/ Who is it that can tell me who I am?” In this moment, Lear does not recognize the man he has become due to his prolonged blindness. For the remainder of the play, although Lear does depend on his other senses, his “sight” improves tremendously and he wishes to make things right with his favorite daughter, Cordelia. However, by the time he realized this, Lear and Cordelia’s fate were already sealed with their tragic deaths.
In William Shakespeare’s King Lear, blindness is a reoccurring theme that affects several characters. Although I chose to focus on Lear himself, there has been one or more instances where a character’s inability to see reality has prevented from making sound decisions. Lear is not only a king, but a father who could not see the ugly reality behind the pretty words of his daughters, Goneril and Regan. Their wicked ambition caused Lear to betray his faithful daughter, Cordelia, who chose to express her love by showing and not telling. Hindsight is 20/20 and as Lear slowly came to realize this, the guilt drove him into insanity. Because Lear could not accept reality, it ultimately led to the kingdom’s demise. Overall, Shakespeare teaches us that we need more than eyes to see clearly.