“Loyalty is a noble quality, provided it is not blind and does not exclude a higher loyalty to truth and decency.” Putting faith in something that isn't real is worse than putting faith in nothing at all. Troubled and unreasonable thoughts lead to such a thing. This is demonstrated throughout Shakespeare's King Lear. Characters question the loyalty of their offspring without any evidence. The characters are also unreasonable in their thoughts regarding those loyal to them within the kingdom. Additionally, the characters have a flawed view of what love is, leading them to unreasonably question their loyalties. In Shakespeare's King Lear, when one is illogical in determining loyalty, it leads to betrayal and suffering, until one recognizes the error. Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get Original Essay The dedication of one's offspring is misjudged. As a parent it is difficult to do right and wrong all the time, bad decisions will always be made. In Gloucester's case, he chose to favor his legitimate son, Edgar, over his illegitimate son, Edmund. It's not the fault of Edmund's birthright. This injustice causes flaws in Edmund's character. After years of feeling inadequate, evil begins to manifest within him, or simply a misunderstanding. He feels the need to take revenge on his father and brother for the easy life they led. This led him to come up with a ruse to convince Gloucester that Edgar planned to kill Gloucester and claim his inheritance: seeing how loathsomely I stood before me / Towards his unnatural goal, in fallen motion / My body not supplied, threw the mental arm; / And when he saw my spirits most alarmed, / Bold in the right of quarrel, awakened to meet, / Or if he was panting at the noise I made, / Suddenly he fled. / Let it fly away. / He will not remain in this land untraceable (II, I, 57-63) The fact that Gloucester is so ready to accept his faithful son as a traitor is disturbing. Edgar is not only a faithful son, but also one he has favored all his life. This causes Edgar to shift favor to Edmund, through trickery. Even though this was done dishonestly, it achieves the balance of the universe, where no one can have all the luck. Gloucester's decision to trust Edmund is a bad decision. Not only is Edmund a cheat and a liar, but he also intends to do exactly what he says Edgar is planning; to kill Gloucester and claim the inheritance. Based on his poor judgment, Edgar's scheme moves closer and closer to fruition. He betrays his father several times. Edmund uses the people against Lear to his advantage. They do not look favorably on those who support Lear, and they are also against Gloucester. Gloucester informs Edmund of a secret letter from Cordelia that has come into his possession. He also recounts his plot to sneak out of his own castle, occupied by Regan and Cornwall, to help Lear. He tells both of these things with complete confidence. The problem is that he is not addressing a faithful son, but a traitor. This causes Edmund to flee to Cornwall and Regan with the news: “This courtesy, I forbid you, the Duke will know/instantly, and of this letter also./It seems well deserving, and must attract me/ What my father does not lose less than anything. / The youngest rises when the old falls. (III, iii, 21-25) Gloucester is even more heartbroken at the idea that hisdear Edgar turned against him and was in hiding, plotting to kill himself for simple money and land. In the meantime, Edmund was ceremoniously given the title of Earl of Gloucester, by Regan, Cornwall and Goneril, in his father's absence. Edmund, who is evil, gains more and more fortune at this time, while Gloucester and Edgar both suffer. Edgar himself is hiding as a poor man, freezing to death in nothing but a loincloth, acting like a mental patient. This shows how the impact that a bad decision made can have on one's own life or that of a loved one. Slowly, through enlightenment, Gloucester admits that he was wrong. As time goes by, Gloucester learns more and more about the situation and notices that something is wrong. When Regan and Cornwall reward his hospitality by gouging out his eyes, Gloucester learns the truth about Edmund's betrayal. He then regrets with all his heart the way he treated Edgar. Unfortunately, he has no idea where Edgar has gone and suffers from an additional handicap: lack of eyes. A further setback is his declining health, mainly mental, as depression takes hold. None of this helps his predicament. He reaches poor Tom (Edgar) who agrees to help him find Lear, but his will to live wavers, ultimately failing: "I renounce this world, and, before your eyes, Shake off my great affliction patiently./If I could bear it longer and didn't fall. To argue with your great wills without opposition,/My tobacco and my hated part of nature should/Exhaust. If Edgar lives, O bless him!/Now, my friend, be well. (IV, VI, 35-41) The meaning of this is obvious. Gloucester has realized his mistake and wants to make up for his past actions, but doesn't know where to start. He feels hopeless that he will ever be able to obtain Edgar's forgiveness, because Edgar is very well hidden. What Gloucester doesn't realize is that Edgar understands and has stayed by his side through the good times and the bad, like a good son should. He disguised himself to protect himself, but nevertheless he was there. The despair of his situation haunts him because he believes that Edgar will never be able to forgive him for such a great transgression. This is reinforced by the thought that he had previously attempted to stalk and kill his son. He doesn't realize that Edgar is so close and so forgiving, and so he gives up on life completely, not seeming worth it without his son. This shows the bond that truly exists between father and son, on both sides. With such a connection, Gloucester is proven to be truly irrational in his hasty judgment of loyalty. Unfounded concerns create a question of loyalty within the kingdom. When there is great conflict, the people around a person may suddenly seem to turn against them. King Lear's irrationality in this situation is originally due to the tension he felt through the big decisions he had to make. The division of his kingdom was something that weighed heavily on Lear's mind. He's old, he's tired, he wants to go out. However, he has yet to realize that this, along with the simple truth of his age, is affecting his state of mind. He does not think clearly, does not make wise and well-planned decisions. Instead, he quickly became very emotional, and very suspicious, first questioning those dearest and most loyal to him: Hear me recreate!/On your allegiance, listen to me!/That you have sought to make us break our vows, / What we have never yet dared, and with strained pride / To come between our sentence and our power, / Which neither our nature nor our place can support, / Our power restored good, take your reward./Five dayswe grant you for provision/To protect you from the disasters of the world,/And the sixth, they have turned in hatred/On our kingdom. (I, i, 168-178) Dear Kent, King Lear's loyal subject is so subject to the irrationality of Lear's troubled mind. King Lear cannot stand anyone telling him he is wrong at this point, especially not someone who is under his command as one of his mere servants. Kent appears to bear the brunt of Lear's rage, as well as mental deterioration. When Kent speaks out against Lear in his decision to banish Cordelia, Lear feels that it is a direct act against him, an indictment even of how he chooses to live his life, a betrayal. This is of course unfounded, as Kent simply hopes to show Lear that he is throwing away something valuable. Lear chooses to see this as a betrayal, deciding that Kent is not loyal to him and may never have been loyal to him. As he allows the situation to develop, he is betrayed time and time again. He is first abandoned by his dear Goneril, then by his beloved Regan, as well as by her husband, the Duke of Cornwall. From there, he only knows pain. As Lear has taken two of the most influential and, more importantly, beloved people he knows away from him forever, there have been some ramifications. To begin with, Lear, at his age, was never completely stable, nor mentally healthy before this. However, since then his stability and mental state have seriously deteriorated. He has, to put it simply, gone mad. As if his judgment was not already biased enough, he now suffers from this handicap, which removes all decision-making capacity from him. Lear has suffered so much and learned so much about real suffering since he banished Kent and turned his back on his kingdom. He has become overwhelmed by this pain, to the point where he very rarely remembers who he is. This madness is not amusing, but rather weakening. It's something that keeps him from any semblance of a normal life, something he can't recover from: Alas, it's him! Well, we met him even now/As wild as the stormy sea, singing aloud,/crowned with fumiters and furrow weeds,/With hardocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo flowers, /Darnel and all the idle weeds that grow /In our enduring corn. A century sent./Search every acre in the cultivated fields/And bring it before our eyes. What can/the wisdom of man/To restore his bereaved sense?/That which helps him to take on all my external value. (IV, iv, 1-9) All there is now in Lear's life is suffering. His conscious life, that is to say this period in which he escapes the slavery of his mental disorder, to return to relative normality, is a nightmare. All he sees is darkness. The darkness of knowing that there is nothing in your life worth living, that everything that gave you happiness is far away. The betrayals he himself committed against himself and those dear to him tear him to pieces. So thinking about the betrayals of others close to him is just too much to bear. Lear finally begins to see the error of his ways and tries to overcome it. Over time, he becomes more consumed by guilt rather than self-pity, although it's hard to tell whether this sends him further away or not. One thing is certain, he understands the wrong he has done and feels remorse for it, wishing there was a way to make things right. It's almost as if, in an effort to preserve his sanity, he pushes thoughts of Kent and his duties to his kingdom from his head. When he finds Kent, it's someone he barely recognizes. Kent is such a vague, distant memory. However, it is a situationgenerally happy. This reunion only brings good, because both are satisfied to be in each other's company, as in the past. In fact, little has changed, except the names of the Caius who served Lear during Kent's absence: Lear: Are you not Kent?/ Kent: The same;/ Your servant Kent. Where is your servant Caius?/ Lear: He is a good boy, I can tell you./ He will strike, and quickly too. He is dead and rotten./ Kent: No, my good lord; I am the very man-/ Lear: I will see that clearly./ Kent: That since your beginnings of difference and decadence/ I have followed your sad steps./ Lear: You are welcome here. (V, iii, 282-289) It is somehow reassuring that someone Lear learned to trust, this same Caius, is one and the same person as Kent. This goes hand in hand with the fact that Kent never strayed from Lear's side and always remained completely loyal. It is worth noting that Lear did not issue a long-winded apology, because even today the distinction between societal levels must still be maintained. When he says “you’re welcome here,” it says a lot. It's about apologies, about forgiveness, about recognizing that it was Lear who made the mistake and that he was trying to make up for it. It was also a wonderful surprise for Lear, and a boost of confidence in his fellow man, to learn that Kent had never abandoned him and had been there to support him throughout his ordeals. This shows that it really was a big misunderstanding, that they have a very strong bond, a remarkable bond considering the societal circumstances. From this it can be said that only King Lear's unfounded and hasty judgments presented their connection in such an unfavorable light. The state of disillusionment causes irrational judgments about the true meaning of love. Love is something that can be professed over and over again, but still has no real meaning. It is something that must be felt and proven through actions rather than words. In the case of King Lear, he at one point associated love with the responsibilities of his kingdom. Rather, he associated love with freedom from responsibility. Most of the time, we don't want to have the responsibilities we have; yet this is their fate. This causes a kind of rebellion, without thinking about the people it might affect. This is the case with King Lear. He has aged, he is over eighty years old and he feels that he has lived a long and healthy life. He is tired of the daily tasks required to be king and decides to divide the kingdom, without thinking about how it would affect his kingdom, his family, or even himself. More than anything, he wants relief, if only for a short time before his death, security in moving from one girl to another, without having to make any real decisions himself: waiting, we will express our darkest design./Give me the map there. Know that we have divided/Into three our kingdom, and it is our intention quickly/To shake off all the cares and affairs of our age,/To entrust them to younger forces while we/Crawl unburdened to death. Our son of Cornwall,/And you, our no less loving son of Albany,/We have at this hour a constant desire to publish/The many dowries of our daughters, that future conflict/May now be avoided. The princes, France and Burgundy,/Great rivals in the love of our youngest daughter,/Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn/and here will be answered. Tell me, my daughters/(From now on we both strip ourselves of power,/Interests of the territory, concerns of the State)/Which of you will we say who loves us the most?/So that our more great generosity may extend/Where naturegets involved challenge of merit. (I, i, 37-54) Looking at this, we can see that something is definitely wrong. Lear's definition of love is terribly distorted. His version of love is completely superficial. This has nothing to do with the truth; it's nothing more than overt emotions. The fact that Lear abandons his kingdom; dividing his power based on words describing how unrealistically they love him reflects negatively on him. You can see how serious he is about these efforts and how strongly he believes in this method of truly knowing how each of his daughters feels about him. From there, he almost seems to deserve the betrayal that will come from his daughters. By banishing Cordelia, he committed one of the greatest wrongs it is possible to commit. He abandoned someone, and even more so, the girl who was faithful to him. On the other hand, it is totally inexcusable to give land to your disloyal daughters. At the moment, he is completely ignorant and oblivious to what he has done wrong, instead viewing it as something wrong done to himself. His conception of love must change, or be changed. The time following Cordelia's banishment brings only torture, through deception and self-inflicted pain. Shortly after Cordelia's banishment, with her words "nothing", King Lear understands exactly what love really isn't. The superficial love he asked for backfired. Both Goneril and Regan were more than happy to offer him words of affection, but that didn't make them any more real. Their main concern is control of Lear now that he has relinquished the rights to his kingdom: Goneril: The best and strongest of his time was only/reckless; then we must look from his age to receive, not only the imperfections of a long-entrenched condition, but at the same time the undisciplined waywardness that years of infirmity and/or anger bring with them. Regan: We like having such fickle beginnings from him, like that of Kent's banishment. Goneril: There is still a starting compliment between France and him. Please, let's strike together. If our/father bears authority with the disposition he bears,/ this final abandonment of his will only offends us./ (I, I, 296-306) Finally, Lear learns the true meaning of betrayal and the false meaning of love. . This leads to the decline of his mental health, of his condition in general. He becomes bitter and loses all faith in the world around him: Rumble your stomach! Spit, fire! Beak, rain!/Neither rain, wind, thunder, fire are my daughters./I do not impose on you, you elements, with malice./I never gave you a kingdom, I never called children,/You owe me no subscription. So let go/Your horrible pleasure. Here I am your slave,/A poor old man, infirm, weak, and despised./But yet I call you servile ministers,/Who with two pernicious daughters will join/Your highly bred battles against a head/So old and white like that ! Oh! It's filthy! (III, ii, 14-24) The betrayals he feels from Goneril and Regan, after giving them all the land they could desire, he cannot understand. This is how he thought love should work, the words are spoken, there is a symbolic gift to prove it, and then everyone is happy. Unfortunately, he didn't take into account their character, their manipulative, scheming and controlling way. This leads them to try to take complete control of Lear and his life, trying to make him give up any sense of individuality and freedom. As freedom is his only other wish in life at this point, he cannot accept it and cannot understand why.