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King Lear

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The Nihilism in Shakespeare 's King Lear

William Shakespeare has been one of most renowned playwrights if not the most . He has authored many plays but the greatest known play that he has written was that of King Lear . In the play , Shakespeare turns the legend of King Lear into a great tragedy which accounts for the popularity it possesses even up to the present time . It is interesting to note that in this tragedy , nothingness was signified in a

very clever way . The plot of the play is that of the struggle of good and evil but throughout the scenes , one can observe the implicitly embedded thematic lines that deal with nothingness

One of the many lines that exhibit this theme was King Lear 's reaction to his daughter 's seemingly empty love for him where he cautions Cornelia , her daughter with words as , Nothing will come of nothing (King Lear , 1 .1 .92 . Such words seem to echo the idea that runs throughout the play . The story of King Lear and his two evil daughters and that of the subplot that tackles the duke of Gloucester and his two sons seem to revolve around the idea of nothingness . Truly , without the evil intentions of King Lear 's two daughters and Gloucester 's son , no tragedy would have occurred . Furthermore , if only King Lear and the duke of Gloucester have not taken for granted what has been happening around them , such tragedy would not have occurred . But since both have no insights , nothing good has bear fruit from their mischievous mistakes Conversely , there is a unique irony of these words for which they are stated . Cornelia , although expects nothing in particular , becomes a queen and is a good daughter thus nullifying what his father has told her

Another interesting passage that depicts the nihilism in the play is again uttered by King Lear . This time , King Lear speaks of the harshness of life and injustice of fate by crying out the nothingness of man Thus , he exclaimed that , Is man no more than this ? Consider him well Thou owest the worm no silk , the beast no hide , the sheep no wool , the cat no perfume . Ha ! Here 's three on 's are sophisticated ! Thou art the thing itself : unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare , forked animal as thou art (King Lear , 3 .4 .105-110 . As can be evident , the thematic tragedy of the play is observable in the lines . The humiliation of a man just like what King Lear has experienced has brought nothing but suffering on the emotional and physical level . In the scene , there is not only one storm that was in progress as can be explicitly seen . In reality , there are two storms raging , one is that of the physical storm mentioned in the play and the other is the less explicitly stated storm that rages inside King Lear 's heart . In...

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