King Lear is a tragic playwritten by William Shakespeare. It is a play about the suffering of two families that are caught in a struggle of greed, lust, and cruelty which eventually results in extreme amounts of pain and destruction for all the characters. In King Lear, there is a circular relationship between the characters’ behavior and nature. That is, the destruction of the two families results from human behavior breaking accepted laws of nature, and the disturbances in nature result from the disturbances in human behavior. Shakespeare portrays this theme by demonstrating the damage Lear and Edmund create when they break the laws of nature, and of course, nature itself in the form of the storm in King Lear.The idea of nature is first introduces by Cordelia in the very beginning of the play. When Lear asks Cordelia to tell him how much she loves him, Cordelia responds by saying that she loves him “acoording to my bond.” (1.1.102) Cordelia mean that her love for her father is based upon the laws of nature and involobes the clearest recognition of her filial obligations. It is this law which Lear himslef depends on when he expects to be revered and obeyed both as a king and as a father by all his daughters. Shakespeare demonstrates this idea when he points out that at a later point in the play, after Lear is treated horribly by Goneril, Lear expressed his conviction that Regan, unlike Goneril, knows better “the offices of nature, bond of childhood.” (2.4.202) It is ironic that here Lear uses the exact same word as Cordelia has used before, that is, “bond” to describe the natural ties that he himslef broke before only to expect that they would be followed by his daughter, Regan when he is in a time of need.However, Lear does not understand what Cordelia means when she says this, and is very upset as a consequence. At this point Lear destroys his natural family ties to Cordelia by b...
