'The play provides a striking demonstration for the human capacity for both evil and good'. In what ways do you find this true of King Lear and how important is it to the play's overall effect?

‘The play provides a striking demonstration for the human capacity for both evil and good’. In what ways do you find this true of King Lear and how important is it to the play’s overall effect?

Much more than he gives a display of the human capacity for good, in ‘King Lear’ Shakespeare provides his readers with shockingly cruel characters, whose presence, scheming and manipulations, and their effects, are felt constantly throughout the play. Any ‘good’ present in the world of King Lear only manages to shine for a few brief moments. When good has triumphed, the victory has only come after great sacrifice and is almost always destroyed by further misuse of power by the few characters that can claim to have it.

It is common for audiences to leave ‘King Lear’ with the feeling that good has not triumphed fully over the evil prevalent from the very start of the play. In King Lear, Shakespeare gives us many examples of this. . King Lear’s prospects looked good prior the battle against his evil daughters and Edmund. He is reunited with his good daughter who symbolizes the hope for the future. This gives the audience optimism about the future of Britain, but then they are shocked when hope is hanged and Cordelia dies, soon to be followed by the death of her father. While the audience may feel that it is hard for us today to reconcile this situation, we must note that it would have been even more difficult for earlier audiences to do the same. Having witnessed Lear’s growing madness and mental anguish, and Gloucester’s physical abuse and similar mental torture, we can attempt to justify that they had in part contributed to their own downfall. However, at the conclusion of the play, in general audiences seek to understand the lack of justification for Cordelia’s death.

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In terms of the importance of good and evil to the overall effect of the play, Shakespeare gives us indications as to why he has formed such evil characters. Throughout the play, the idea that humans, not the gods, created evil is presented and linked to this is the ongoing theme of justice. The obviously ‘evil’ characters, Goneril, Regan and Edmund, therefore, have chosen themselves to go against good, loyalty and justice, and seek power by any immoral means possible. The audience realises this, but it is even more shocking when we see that the good characters in the play are aware of it too, so we wonder why the disloyal children cannot see this as well. At the very end of the play, Albany tells us that “all foes (shall taste)/ The cup of their deservings”, saying that the evil doers will be justly punished as it is all the work of their own hands. In the same scene Edgar reveals his belief that “the gods are just”, similarly thinking that it is the people, not the gods who promote the evil in the world. Lear’s poignant scene on the heath also tells us that he thinks that people are the cause of all evil, as in his madness he asks Poor Tom if he is mad also because he gave everything to evil (his daughters).

The clearest battle between good and evil in the play is focused on one event – the duel between Edgar and Edmund. This, pleasingly, is the one instance is where divine justice prevails. The subplot of the play echoes the main plot, in that both Lear and Gloucester have good and evil children, but reject the good children and reply on and trust the evil ones. Edgar, while a consistently ‘good’ character, could be seen to prove himself to be worthy of becoming the King when we see his compassion and forgiveness for his father. ‘Poor Tom’ refuses to let Gloucester die and rejects Gloucester’s despair, still seeking a happy and just resolution of the events of the play. In letting Gloucester think that he has attempted suicide, Edgar manipulates Gloucester’s understanding of divine will. He says to Gloucester, after his supposed fall and rebirth “thy life’s a miracle/ The clearest gods/ Have preserved thee” Edgar, a welcome force of good gives Gloucester new life, when all Regan, Goneril and Edmund can do is bring people within a thread of their lives, and plot to kill others. It could be seen that Edgar and Cordelia are portrayed in a similar way, in that they both are saviours to their fathers. Edgar’s revival of Gloucester is almost religious, telling him he should “bear free and patient thoughts”. Gloucester’s life has been given back to him and he should take better care of it in the future. Likewise, Cordelia is certainly Lear’s angel.

Cordelia, while not actually in the play a great deal, remains a symbol of hope of Lear and for the future of England. Cordelia is everything her sisters are not. Humble, patient, forgiving and composed, we await her return, knowing that it will not be for political greed, but to assist Lear. In Act 4 Shakespeare makes a point of pushing the audience to sympathise with Cordelia. We get beautiful angelic descriptions of her from Kent and Gentleman to emphasise her good personality. Cordelia is not rash; she is like “sunshine and rain” and has “smiles and tears” and is a calm, balanced personality. Shakespeare even elevates Cordelia to an almost religious position, giving her “heavenly eyes”. The scenes with the return of Cordelia act as a stark contrast to the gloom and turmoil that came previously, caused by her sisters. The void that Cordelia fills, however, is depressingly brief, and evil almost prevails when Cordelia and Lear are hanged, a disturbing twist in justice from the gods, which we felt sure would come.

The forces expressing themselves in King Lear are of universal dimensions. Both good and evil find their purest and most powerful expressions, but it is the impression of evil that is most predominant and enduring. Kindness and goodness are not sufficiently developed to get expressed on that scale. It could be said that in ‘King Lear’ Shakespeare’s evil, cruel characters are always more powerful than his good ones. When we recover from the horror that is presented, we discover that though evil is by far the most intense and penetrating force represented here, it is not either during the course of action or in the end a dominating influence against which all others are helpless. Instead, we find that this evil has been released into the world of King Lear by a chain of events it did not initiate, and that after a brief but terrible period of destruction those who were its instruments are themselves destroyed. A still deeper insight into the life portrayed here will reveal that what we took to be a thoroughly pessimistic portrayal of evil, suffering and destruction contains within it a process of growing human consciousness and evolving social life.