Prying Into The Heart Of Drama

I usually take one week to finish reading a play text. However, I spend almost three weeks to read King Lear. This is dued to the difficult language style and a lot of contracted forms employed by the playwright Shakespeare.

I am deeply moved by the tragedy happened on King Lear. I can feel the suffering, love and hatred between King Lear and his three daughters. King Lear divides his kingdom among the three daughters by testing the degree of their love to him in their words. Goneril and Regan are content to flatter and promise obedience in lying about their love for their father. They use elaborate and exaggerate language to conceal their true feelings for their father. On the other hand, the youngest daughter,Cordelia, whom King Lear has loved the most, refuses to lie in this fashion. She uses simple, straightward prose and refuses to tell her love to her father publicly. As a result, she loses her share of the kingdom to the two wicked sisters. King Lear misjudges her and disinherits his loving daughter in favour of her wicked sisters.

At the end of the play, King Lear in his madness realises his fault against Cordelia but his reconciliation with her is too late. After the death of her two villain sisters, Cordelia is found dead after strangling and King Lear too dies brokenhearted. What a sad consequence because of the misjudgement of a father! Here is a tragedy in King Lear, one death after death. A king has fallen from the height of his powers to become a bothersome old man. Only after going madness he understands the vanity of his former existence. What a sad tragedy!

King Lear’s tragic experience has helped me to discover the relationship among humans. We should cherish the relationship we have in our family. We should not compare one’s love with another. People express love in many different way.