The Rise of Evil in King Lear Essay -- King Lear essays

superpower Lear The Rise of Evil King Lear, the principal character in Shakespeares play of the same name, is a dominating imperious king. Though he takes initiative to disinherit his youngest daughter and exile his faithful friend, there is not in him the capacity for conscious and intentioned offensive that is prevalent in his ii elder daughters as well as in Cornwall, Edmund and Oswald. Nevertheless, there is a force in Lear that releases a bowel movement of ravaging in which reprehensible does rise and momentarily take hold on the course of events. When Lear decides to disown power in favor of emotions, the vital egoism in him which thrives on power rises up and asserts itself against the movement. It is the drive for power, attention, recognition, vengeance the habit of assertion, anger, rage the traits of pluck and vanity that take hold of him and initiate a downward movement of destruction in opposition to the upward movement of the heart. The course of events that follows is an required working out of these opposing movements. The vital egoism in Lear is a dominating force which permits the existence and expression only of itself and its own will. some(prenominal) submits and satisfies survives, the rest must vanish unnoticed or remain unexpressed. such(prenominal) an atmosphere is stifling to the natural growth of other personalities which require freedom for self-expression in order that they may outgrow what is primitive and childish in favour of what is acquire and cultured. These psychological circumstances almost inevitably event in suppression and repression rather than growth. Instead of being expressed and out-grown the capacities for selfishness, harshness and perversity in man get organised beneath the sur... ...ing. The evil in Goneril is organised in a developed mind, it is more self-conscious and more absolute. The undeveloped vibration of evil in Regan attracts a familiar who can bring out its further development while the mature evil in Goneril attracts a mate to destroy it. Life supports either vibration until it reaches its full stature and then provides the necessary circumstances for its destruction or transformation. Bibliography Casebook King Lear, Edited by Frank Kermode, Macmillan & Co., 1969 Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan & Co., 1965, Prefaces to Shakespeare Vol. II, Granville-Barker, B.T. Batsford Ltd., London, 1963 Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan & Co., 1965 Casebook King Lear, Edited by Frank Kermode, Macmillan & Co., 1969, p. 175. Shakespearean Tragedy, A.C. Bradley, Macmillan & Co., 1965, p. 231.