King Lear

             In King Lear there are many themes which shape the way individual and sometimes multiple characters will act. As they would in real life, the characters in the play will show personality traits such as despair, providence and fortitude which could lead them to nakedness and woe. Through examples, you will see how Cordelia, King Lear and Edmund all obtain one of these traits which, in the end, will lead them to their fate. .
             King Lear, throughout most of the play, is overcome by a sense of futility and .
             defeat and he loses all hope of regaining his dignity. When Lear is standing in the raging .
             storm he strips off his clothes and yells to the heavens in the nude. At this point Lear has .
             reached his peak of despair. .
             "Poor naked wretches, wheresoe"er you are, That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm, .
             How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides, Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend you From Seasons such as these O, I ave ta"en Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp; Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, that thou may'st shake the superflux to them, And show the heavens more just." (163).
             Not only has Lear made the wrong decisions about his daughters and lost everything he had, he .
             now realizes how terribly he treated the poor population, which he has now become himself. He .
             is going insane from everything that has come crashing down on him. The raging storm, which is .
             often referred to during the play, is a theme used which parallels Lear's madness. .
             "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drenched our steeples, drowned the cocks! You sulph"rous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers of oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Strike flat the thick rotundity o" the world, Crack Nature's molds, all germens spill at once, That make ungrateful man!" (147) .
             This shows the utter chaos that Lear wishes the storm to bring because he feels the same feeling .