King Lear Group

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clara123
clara123
Student
High School - 12th Grade

What are the most important changes that take place in the character of Lear during the play King Lear?

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Posted by clara123 on Monday February 23, 2009 at 10:57 AM and tagged with changes in lear, characters, king lear.

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  1. kc4u Teacher
    College - Senior

    eNotes Editor

    Perhaps the most visibly striking change in the character of Lear occurs when the old king is seen 'contending with the fretful elements' in storm and rain on the heath. In actIII scII Lear is seen on the wasted heath, exposed to the full fury of storm, thunder, rain and lightning, invoking the cosmic elements to destroy the creation:'Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks. Rage, blow!/ You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout/Till you have drenched our steeples, drown'd the cocks...' Raving and just on the verge of madness, Lear urges for cosmic  over-turning and collapse.

    Apart from this , open to the inhumanities of her 'pelican daughters' and of the catastrophic forces unleashed, Lear grows love through adversities of weather, senses an ennobling of mind to realise  his kinship with the whole of mankind:'Take physic, pomp,/ Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel....' With some rags on, and himself tearing them open, Lear seems to have declassed himself from the height of kingship to become a very caring father-figure for the Fool and Edgar disguised as a Bedlamite beggar.

    Another element of change can be seen when the old king kneels down before Cordelia. Transmuted into pure gold having been processed through the fire of suffering, Lear tells her youngest daughter:' You must bear with me; pray you now,/Forget and forgive:I am old and foolish .'

    From an angry old king to a wretched mad man to one redeemed, Lear changes significantly in the play.

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    Posted by kc4u on Monday February 23, 2009 at 1:09 PM