“All’s cheerless, dark and deadly” in William Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, his intention to critique humanity’s deadliest flaws is revealed through the journey of his tragic hero. As by Aristotle’s account, “the poet is guided in what he writes by the wishes of his audience” the tragedy appeals to the subconscious; therefore affecting them more inherently. This inspires a shift in thinking that could alter the moral level of our functioning. The Aristotelian tragedy presents audiences with such a sobering reality that they are forced to recognize what we continuously hide from. In doing so, they must reflect on their own existence and how it parallels the nature of the tragedy. In crafting King Lear, Shakespeare replicated the journey of the Aristotelian tragedy and in doing so, he skillfully communicates a formidable warning. It becomes clear through the tragic hero’s journey and it’s symbolic communication, that every consequence in life is the result of our own thought and character because these, as Aristotle expressed, “are the two natural causes from which actions spring, and on actions again all success or failure depends.” He warns us of the need to be conscious of ourselves, our ability to dictate the course of our own lives and in turn, our influence on the blindly accepted assumptions of our society. 

We close our eyes to what we don’t want to see. But when this makes us blind to reality, we lose the insight that is vital in confronting our weakness. “The King falls from bias of nature”, it is Lear’s hamartia that causes his tragic downfall and Shakespeare uses the motif of eyes to illustrate this. He is guilty of a narcissistic blindness and inability to see himself nor the reality of what is going on around him clearly. His arrogance persuades him to act impulsively without pause for consideration or intuitive sight. He wishes reality would “Avoid my sight” because he comes to realize that “I want no eyes; I stumbled when I saw”. The ironic motif of eyesight and blindness reflects a universal flaw. The audience can recognize that “No eyes in your head, nor money in your purse? …Yet you see how this world goes”.  Because vision is so easily marred by the bias of desire, the only way to experience the world honestly, is to “…see it feelingly”. Shakespeare’s intention is made clear to his audience through their understanding of Lear’s hamartia, the crucial yet fragile line between appearance and reality becomes evident. We are immediately presented with the potential for self-destruction when we neglect to see reality, opting for illusion instead. The audience is shown their own inclination to see only what we want to see and ignore what we deem ‘bad’; if we wear “glass eyes; and like a scurvy politician, seem To see the things thou dost not” we can avoid our faults and act without rationality. Shakespeare warns his audience that, in protecting ourselves from seeing an anguish that is there whether we acknowledge it or not, we deny ourselves the ability to amend that anguish. We live blinded by a dangerous illusion of perfection rather than challenge our own flaws.

As King Lear experiences his peripeteia and his fate is altered dramatically, a wild storm overwhelms the country. This metaphor mimics the insanity that becomes a “tempest in [Lear’s] mind”. Everything that he had is stripped from him and he loses the ability to think or communicate without chaos. His identity is lost. In the turbulence of the storm, he proclaims in prose, “You cataracts and hurricanes spout till you have drenched our steeples”… The impediment in his eyes and the turmoil in his mind destroys his fundamental understanding until he is left with nothing but reflection. In his insanity, the blindness that had previously burdened him was now an acute awareness, “Oh matter and impertinency mixed! Reason in madness!”. In the wrath of the storm, Lear refers to “Thebans” of Greece as philosophers, those who have a greater knowledge and more profound understanding of the world- only through their unabridged experience of it in all its suffering; without ignorant shelter from “this pitiless storm”. Because “this conscientious storm Invades us to the skin”, Lear finally comes to realize the depth of his own mortality. Shakespeare’s intentions are evident; in the peripeteia and anagnorisis of his tragic hero, he proposes the possibility of knowledge through suffering. In order to gain true understanding of the world’s fullness we must open ourselves up to the probability of aching. Only then can we connect perceptively and form a philosophy. Aristotle’s theory was explicit in death being the end of its hero. This knowledge reveals that to try to ignore the inevitability of some kind of storm is an impossibility that leads only to downfall. The audience is reminded of the way we cannot live without struggle, it is not possible and we exhaust ourselves in searching for a life without fault.

If “the tailor makes the man” then a man without clothing is nothing. Without the illusion of a costume we are revealed to be no more than human. Only in this knowledge can we accept the turbulence of our lives and grow from it. Shakespeare employs a clothing motif to symbolize the futility in societal expectations of position. He highlights the unfamiliarity of truth when we put value in material rather than character. In the tragic hero’s anagnorisis, it is revealed that “Through tattered clothes small vices do appear; Robes and fur gowns hide all. Plate sin with gold, and the strong lance of justice hurtless breaks; Arm it in rags, a pygmy’s straw does pierce it.” Because we find worth in appearance, if one “plate[s] sin with gold” one can hide from accountability, while to wear “tattered clothes” you risk persecution from a broken and unforgiving “lance of justice”. Upon seeing Edgar in man’s most natural state, Lear makes a profound realization, crying that the “unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare forked animal as thou art. Off, you lendings! Come, unbutton here.” He now sees the corruption in which his validity and power are determined by nothing but a superficial identity. Lear removes his clothing and false superiority; beneath the regalia, he is revealed to be just a man of both good and evil. The audience makes the nihilistic discovery that there is no greater purpose or order. Coating ourselves in gold does not make us exempt from responsibility for our influence. Shakespeare’s use of the clothing motif reveals to his audience that in ridding ourselves of these materialistic layers, we can be honest about our position in a world that relies on an illusive order. Only once we do so can we have true power over our identity.   

Through motifs that symbolize King Lear’s journey and our understanding of the Aristotelian tragedy, Shakespeare’s intention is impactful. He intended to illustrate the flaw in humanity’s constant need to look externally, making “guilty of our desires the sun, the moon, the stars as if we were villains on necessity: fools by heavenly compulsion.” We close our eyes to our own potential, instead reach for some greater power for blame and guidance; reason in a world where there is little. But what we must be reminded of is that we are in control. In evoking our self reflection, Shakespeare implores us to recognize the urgency of our responsibility to be critical of our own existence. “When we are born, we cry that we have come to this great stage of fools” where we lie, cheat and cover up in an instinctive desire to achieve some expectation of image. This is ultimately an illusion. We must accept what Lear comes to experience, that we are all susceptible to the immense variety that comes with being human. When we strip ourselves of condemning codes of behavior, we can be truthful about our experience and unpredictable world. In doing so, we can attempt to better the state of our moral functioning in a society that is based on truth rather facades.