King Lear Loyalty Analysis

Shakespeare’s play, King Lear incorporates the status of different relationships throughout the play. Subsequently, many situations revolve around Lear’s naïve thinking of his relationships with his daughters and his kingdom. When ruling a kingdom, loyalty is expected from everyone under the leader’s rule especially by their family and friends. Shakespeare describes how easy it was for his characters to misunderstand what true and honest servitude, love, and loyalty are, due to their arrogance and ignorance. Essentially, Shakespeare emphasizes how false sense of loyalty leads to the downfall of power.
Immediately, King Lear is depicted by Shakespeare to have wanted exaggerated approval and acceptance from others. This is shown through his …show more content…
Lear’s perception of loyalty was silence of unfair punishment and agreeance with his unfairness which is the complete opposite of Kent’s attempt. Before Kent’s defense he expressed his pure loyalty and respect for Lear by saying, “Royal Lear, Whom I have ever honour’d as my king, loved as my father, as my master follow’d...” (5), yet he was still treated as a traitor and was banished. Kent defended Cordelia knowing that in Lear’s anger he would feel his wrath. After his banishment, he decided to take on a disguise and follow Lear’s leadership even though he felt Lear treated Cordelia and himself unfairly. His loyalty and servitude to King Lear remained despite Lear’s unjustly rule. King Lear failed to see Kent’s loyalty and loss one of his most loyal servants. Lear’s failure to observe Kent’s loyalty caused him to become vulnerable and lose his sanity, which left him with no immediate support when Gonreil, Regan and the rest of his kingdom turned their back on …show more content…
If it had not been for Gloucester’s betrayal of Cornwall, Gonreil, and Regan’s request to abandon Lear, Lear would have been killed by the storm or by the army that had planned to engage in war against his slight rule. Gloucester’s loyal act was not only based off sympathy, but also out of respect for Lear’s rightful kingship. Gloucester acknowledged that Lear still was the rightful King and that he could not be abandoned to a fitful storm simply because of a debate about an amount of unreliable knights. Gloucester’s risk was never acknowledged by Lear more likely because Lear’s sanity had overtaken him, but Gloucester was still not one of the people he regretted having done wrong due to his