Deception in Shakespeare's King Lear

Regan is no better, when Lear comes to her door looking for a place to stay, “the old man and’s people cannot me well bestowed.” (2, 4, 330-331) That if Lear wants to stay then he has to give up his followers. The power corrupts them into treacherous beings, where respect and honor for their father are less important than their own well-being.

-Also, it is possible the Fool suspects that whoever counseled Lear to make the decision to split up his kingdom among his daughters was in fact an adversary (possibly Oswald) of either Goneril or

Lear cannot deny his ultimate role as the king. He desires to maintain his name and his rights as king, but to give control of the kingdom to his daughters and their husbands. However, this cannot work: "We know immediately that he is doomed to painful disillusionment by his assumption that his identity as king, father, and man, being fixed in the macrocosmic scheme of things, must remain unshaken without its worldly supports" (Egan 32). So, King Lear's exercising of this nonexistent power establishes his tragic flaw and the problem of the play: the power of the kingdom must reside in Lear only.

Here, Lear goes mad and tells Gloucester that even a dog gets obeyed by people who have to obey him and that appearance, authority and power all lead to corruption. He compares himself to the poor when he says that only the poor without power gets into justice and that the society always obeys power even if it is not justified. Even though Lear loses his senses, Edgar still finds out that he has got a point which seems to be reasonable.

One of the major themes of the play is the inability to see things for what they are. Lear’s failure to recognize reality set the plot into motion: He falsely believed that Goneril and Regan loved him, and he falsely accused Cordelia of disloyalty, when in fact, she was the

Edgar is fine. The only lying he has to do in this play is about him being Poor Tom but he only did this so he can come sneak back into his place of exile and so he is not killed. However, Edmund is as cold as ice kind of like Goneril, no wonder Goneril wanted him, they would make a great couple. Edgar killed his lie of a brother once he killed Oswald and read his note where he found out that Edmund and Goneril were having an affair. He accuses Edmund of betraying his father and brother and Albany so he challenges him to a fight and wins, thankfully. Edgar also lies to Gloucester about jumping off a cliff but that was to help him. Gloucester was stuck in a well since he lost his eyes and he was filled with large amount of remorse and distress. Gloucester wished to take the easy way out but Edgar tricked him into jumping on flat earth and not off a cliff which Gloucester actually believed. All the lying that Edgar is doing is either to help himself or help others. Edmund on the other hand does a lot of lying in this play, to the point where finding fact from fiction is very difficult. He lied about his brother trying to kill him which got Edgar banished and almost killed. He also lied to Gloucester about Edgar with his forged letter. Edmund was subject to abuse which provoked him to lie so much and made him want to rule the kingdom even more. He is the Shakespearean version of Jon

   "Only through the loss of our possessions and worldly connections can one truly realize one's inner being" (Confucius). The true nature of man is known but is not commonly seen until adversity strikes. Characters reveal their true nature when they are reduced to nothing. In the play, King Lear, by William Shakespeare, there are three main themes that characters can be reduced by; social status, love and power. Through these three mediums the true nature of the works characters are exposed, by stripping away the innuendo, deceit and superficiality that initially cloaks each character.

beginning of the play proves to be false. Lear discovers that his necessity to keep

Shakespeare's tragedy King Lear can be interpreted in many ways and many responses. The imprecision’s and complication of the play has led

William Shakespeare wrote a great number of literary works, most of which are relevant even in today’s society. From young love in “Romeo and Juliet” to suicide in “Hamlet” to power struggle in “Macbeth”, central themes in many of Shakespeare’s works are discussed today. Another example is his play “King Lear”. In this excerpt from “King Lear”, Shakespeare sets a scene in which the bastard son of a king vows to take the throne from his legitimate brother. By having Edmund first question nature and its laws and then allowing him to answer his own questions, Shakespeare is able to characterize Edmund and his changing attitude towards his situation from questioning to resolute, while also proving that societal labels constrict humanity.

The second contention for Goneril's wickedness stems from her ordering Oswald, a steward, to snub Lear's men, and from her extreme exaggeration of the men's supposedly decadent antics. This argument, however, does not take into account the sentiments of Goneril as a married woman, a lady of the house. In saying, "if he dislike it, let him to our sister," she reveals her intent to use negligent servants as a modus operandus for getting Lear out of her castle and on the road to that of Regan (1.3, 14). The mere act of begrudging a former king some of the luxury surrounding his previous position hardly seems

Deception is a horrible act, in most circumstances, it breaks trust, ruins relationships and causes chaos between loved ones. What’s even worse than deception is betrayal, which is sometimes when someone realizes they have been deceived and then feel that they are betrayed. The tragedy “King Lear”, by William Shakespeare, describes how deception and betrayal are portrayed in the play by commenting on family relationships crumbling to pieces, loyalty being disregarded and the status of women with power being abused for dishonorable purposes.

In these situations, the cast confronts instances of betrayal and eventually self-growth. The story initiates with King Lear’s urgency for flattery, which drives him to commit a decision that instigated the power-hungry course of his daughters. The betrayal of Goneril and Regan caused Lear to separate from his man-made principles and praise those of nature. Besides the change in Lear, the audience also observed Gloucester’s position concerning the legitimacy of his two sons. Societal views were a detriment regarding the rights of illegitimate children, like Edmund. Seeing his brother Edgar conquer all his father’s treasures, Edmund left his praise of nature behind and instead exploited the reliance of status and relationships in his royal family to overcome the laws of society, forming a great deception against his own family.

Gloucester is a patrician devoted to King Lear. However, one thing that the audience learns about him is his adulterous behaviour. He fathered a bastard lad known as Edmond. The fate of Gloucester is similar to that of King Lear. This is because Gloucester miscalculates which of his kids to trust. Gloucester appears weak and incompetent at the beginning of the acts. This is when he fails to prevent King Lear from being turned out of his homestead. However, Gloucester proves that he is also adept of being a great heroism in the later acts within the play.

Lear was not the only character to suffer from blindness, Gloucester too, had lack of insight. He could not see the goodness of his son Edgar, and the wickedness of Edmund. A forged letter was the only evidence needed to convince Gloucester that Edgar was plotting to kill him. Immediately after reading the letter Gloucester screams in a rage;