Home > King Lear Summary & Study Guide > King Lear Group > Discussion Board

I still wonder about what prompts Lear's death at the end of the play. One interpretation is that he dies from unbearable joy induced by the belief that Cordelia is alive. But if he dies from joy thinking that Cordelia still lives he dies, unlike all other tragic heroes, not aware that any tragedy has taken place for the other deaths are not in the full sense tragic.  Then again, if we consider that Lear is mad once again at the end of the play, it again loses its tragedy for Lear becomes a man who has experienced everything and learned nothing.  To make him a tragic hero he must gain knowledge.  Does he?  And in what lines--at the end of the play, not part way through it?

Lear must die in the end. He has gained wisdom, humbled down and been victimised by the injustice he himself was the perpetrator during his kingship. Besides, he is an old man, he has already lost his kingship and most probably the trust of his people. He is too old to continue govern the country and put back everything on rails again. Death is the sole issue to him. He has also grown mad at one time, he is practically left with no energy to live and face life again.