King Lear And Hamlet Analysis

King Lear and Hamlet are two of William Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies that contain equally famous lines. “The ripeness is all” in King Lear (5.2.11), and “The readiness is all” in Hamlet (5.2.160), are both taken from the speeches of two apparent madmen, and both share similar meanings. Whatever is meant to be, will be, is one interpretation of these lines. Another is that man can live to the fullest once he realizes that death is a reality, and that the important thing is to be prepared for it when it comes. While Hamlet and Edgar deliver these lines within different contexts, they both come back to the idea that there is a sense of relief in the idea of fate. In King Lear, when Lear and Cordelia are captured, and Gloucester would rather wait to die than continue on, Edgar puts forth the idea of fate as relief: “What, in ill …show more content…
He is also relieved because if he dies during the duel with Laertes, his struggle with mortality will end. In addition, he finds comfort in being able to get the duel out of the way, rather than wait for time to pass and him losing the peace and acceptance that the graveyard scene allowed for him to achieve. Hamlet’s struggle with his fears and conscience causes him to delay in his revenging of his father’s death and his mother’s quick remarriage, but after this speech that Hamlet gives, he is able to see that all is death, and death is nothing, and that his life is free to be determined. These madmen both put forth the idea of a sense of peace that comes with the acceptance of fate. While Edgar’s initial optimism is struck with the harsh realities of it when he loses his father and the people that he cares about, Hamlet experiences a reversal in fortune as he finds a kind of optimism in the acceptance that prompts the events that are necessary in order for him to kill