The Existence Of Divine Justice In King Lear

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King Lear inspires many philosophical questions chiefly among them is the existence of divine justice. King Lear is a play in which the definition of the saying ‘the punishment does not fit the crime’ comes out in all its essence. In the play, the only way the gods are invoked is through the characters. The characters do summon the gods and at times they do cry to them; however there is no evidence that these gods do exist and that they are responding to the characters’ invocations. Lear praises nature which he feels that is his goddess. He prays for Goneril’s sterility or if she had a child, that it might live to return the scorn and contempt upon her which she had shown to him. Apart from this, he also makes invocations for the wind to increase during the storm scenes: ‘Blow winds, and crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!’ Although the play is set in a pagan setting, Lear prays to the gods to expose criminals and later throughout the play, for the wellbeing of Cordelia and it is through these cries of help that we can notice that no matter how much the king prayed for righteous justice to be served that his prayers remained unanswered. Proof of this is how he calls his daughters ‘pernicious’ in Act III Scene i and in Act III scene iii; also called ‘The Mock Trial Scene’, where Lear states: ‘I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, she [meaning Goneril] kicked the poor King her father.’ It is ironic how Lear thought that he was all-powerful in the first Act whereas now he is making an oath in the name of the gods that what he is stating is true and this shows the resignation he has towards the previous life he led. Meanwhile the gods’ injustice is also present in Gloucester’s subplot. Gloucester has always been a great believer of the gods and in the first act, when he reads Edmund’s forged letter he demonstrates this ‘these late eclipses in the sun

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