Right Relationship in the Shakespeares Play King Lear - Essay Example

?Right Relationship Introduction The character of King Lear and Cordelia The Shakespeare’s play King Lear is a tale of tragedy, trivial conflicts, mixed emotion and personal trasistion.The story is all about a King who foolishly abandon his only honest daughter for treacherous three daughter who wants to deceit him. The play starts with the king entering his retirement phase and provoking his daughters to fight for inheriting his legacy. Cordelia being his youngest and loving daughter find it hard to proclaim the love for her dad and remains in a dilemma. Cordelia detest being in the act of deception to obtain all the glory and vanity of her beloved father, and yet skeptical about the way to show her affection to her father. “Cordelia : All bless’d secrets, All you unpublish’d virtues of the earth, Spring with my tears! be aidant and remediate (Shakespear,121)”. Evidently, It shows that, Cordelia has her morals so deeply rooted in her that she find no way to project her love and admiration for her father. King Lear on the other hand, is a fun and frolic person, who is more engaged in worldly pleasures than royal obligations. He wants to enjoy the luxurious and richness of his kingly status but ignores the responsibilities and duties coming along with it. Moreover, he proclaimed a test to verify the fatherly love of his daughters which shows that he is more of a displayer of love than a believer. Later due to the evil nature of certain characters in the play, King Lear and Cordelier gets captivated and end up in trouble. “Lear:Ask her forgiveness? Do you but mark how this becomes the house:‘Dear daughter, I confess that I am old;[Kneeling.]Age is unnecessary: on my knees I beg That you’ll vouchsafe me raiment, bed, and food” (Shakespear,68).Apparently, the play is portraying an evident transition in the nature of King Lear as he realizes his daughter’s true dedication and love for him. Attitude of King Lear towards Cordelia King Lear the central character of Shakespeare’s play is a father of three daughters’s and wanted his daughters to prove their love for him to inherit his legacy. King Lear is portrayed as an arrogant, carefree and fun - loving character that was less keen on ruling his country and subjects. “Kent : My life I never held but as a pawn To wage against thine enemies; nor fear to lose it, Thy safety being the motive. Lear: Out of my sight!” (Shakespeare,8 ). The above conversation shows that, he was a blind in his materialistic world and never could perceive the real beauty of love and affection. However, Cordelier was his favorite daughter but he never could understand her real feelings and emotions .The Shakespeare has portrayed Cordelia as a character who is entirely lovable with little or no traces of evil in her. It is when the evil characters of the play attempt to corner the King that he realizes the love and dedication of his affectionate daughter Cordelia. King Lear being blind to the real truth of nature banishes the two most powerful and loyal characters in the play in an ignorant manner. King Lear banishes his youngest daughter Cordelie for not giving a superfluous speech showing her love for him. Shakespeare shows in the act that a person blind to truth can no longer differentiate between good and evil and remains ignorant all his life. Apparently, all what Shakespeare is trying to do is to educate the people as to the value of virtue and vice. Is King Lear virtuous according to Aristotle’s concepts? King Lear can never be considered virtuous till the end of the play. He lives a blind life by giving no consideration for truth, morality and ethics. All his effort was in living as a joyous royal entity by forgetting his duties towards his children and the country.Shakespear in this play is trying to gauge the characters from the point of view of Aristotle. According to Shakespeare, a human nature has only two sides, either goodness or evilness. King Lear indeed fell in to the evil category, even though he developed goodness as to the ending stage of the play. He was bewildered by his status as a king and forgot to differentiate between good and evil and ended up deceived by his cruel and evil daughters. Evidently, Lear does not fit into the concepts of Aristotle of a good and virtuous man According to Aristotle, a man of deeds works according to a set of virtuous rules and principles. He believes in divine power and put his actions forward by reminding oneself about the cause and effect law of nature. In his play, Shakespeare has depicted Lear as a king who is blinded by material comforts and completely ignorant of virtue and excellence. His unjustifiable actions trap him in the evils hands of his s daughters who are solely greedy for his wealth. Here it can be boldly suggested that no human can escape from the vicious circle of cause and effect as it is the ultimate truth of our existence. Things to learn from King Lear and Aristotle From the character King Lear, and from the ethical teaching of Aristotle, the strongest message is that Ignorance is a greatest threat to the human existence .The basic flaw of the character Lear is that he valued appearance more than the reality and fell for the flattering of his greedy and treacherous daughters. In his ignorance, he disinherited his honest and lovable daughter and got exiled from his own kingdom. Unfortunately, he realized his follies at a later stage and regrets for his mistake and turns out to be good person in the end. If we compare the character of Lear with Aristotle’s ethical principles, it can be seen that initially Lear is considerable evil but towards the end when the veil of ignorance fall of he turns out to be good. The Shakespear's main idea here was to encourage people to be virtuous and do well to others to achieve ultimate happiness in life .According to Aristotle, only by reading ethical principles or preaching virtuous thoughts one cannot achieve excellence in character. For this, one has to practice these principles and bring forth the good action in his daily life. One should be able to distinguish between good and evil, vice and virtue by his intellect and reasoning. Only by practicing a set of rules over and over can one obtain wisdom and virtue in life. It is habituation which helps a man in gaining control over evil deeds and helps in constructing core ethical values in his personality. Things to learn about Life and right relationship The play of Shakespear’s leaves many things to ponder on about the relationship shared by the characters Lear and Cordelia. The Shakespear through this play is trying to project the ethical and moral values suggested by Aristotle. According to Aristotle every action lead to a final cause and the outcome of an action always depends on the nature of action performed. “We can say without exaggeration that we live in an Aristotelean world; wherever you see modern, Western science dominating a culture in any meaningful way , Aristotle is there in some form” (Hooker). As a human all of us are bound by relationships, and to do justice to these relationships we need to practice a morally good life. To be true to a member of the family one should understand oneself first. One should understand the things that make one happy and the same should be done to others. To be good to oneself , one need to practice virtuous deeds and ultimately to practice virtuous deeds he needs to follow certain set of moral and ethical principles. It is always essential for a person to differentiate between true and false relationship and this is possible only if one uses wisdom and intellect. It is utterly wrong for a human being to go behind outward looks and false emotions and underestimate the real value of truth and beauty of love. A right relationship is where there’s true love and honesty and less of hypocrisy and cheating. Being a good and honest human being, gives the right freedom and justice to any specific relationship. Needless to say, any relationship works on the foundation of true love and devotion and if it lacks in a person then the relationship fails. Conclusion This play is created by Shakespeare to demonstrate the core values in human life as love, understanding, intelligence and truth. The Shakespear wants to show the public that the real thing which matters is beauty of love and not all the glitters and false display of feelings. A man should be able to understand true love and affection by his cognitive skills and not fall in to deceptive traps laid down by evil people. He attempts in his play to teach the fellow human beings about the principles and core ethical and moral values of Aristotle. Aristotle is the great philosopher who has laid on the golden rules for ethics and morals. His values are a mile stone for the future generation to achieve maximum happiness in life. As we see in this play King Lear was blinded of truth and ended up in trouble all because he trusted his evil daughters. He forgot to see the love and affection of his beloved daughter Cordial because he was materialistic. He was not a good human and could not be a good father to his daughter who treasured him most. (Ross, 3) “Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and pursuit, is thought to aim at some good” So it can be very well said that a true human is one who understand and feel the beauty of love and has the wisdom to practice truthful deeds to bring forth happiness to all. Work Cited Hooker, Richard. "Greek Philosophy- Aristotle”. WSU. Richard Hines, 1999. Web. 16 Feb 2011. . Ross, W.D. Nichomachean Ethics. Batoche Books, 1999. Print. Shakespear, William. "King Lear ." Hawaii Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Feb 2011. . Read More