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Wisdom In King Lear Analysis

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The Hidden Wisdom in a Fool
Sometimes a person has to play the role of the fool to fool the fool who thinks they are fooling him. In King Lear, King Lear, his daughters Goneril and Regan, and the nobleman Gloucester were all powerful, respected people, but they all shared one thing in common. They were all foolish. The Fool and Cordelia on the other hand were not as respected as the others. Cordelia stood up for what she believed in and as a result got banished from her family and kingdom. The Fool didn’t have much respect because of his job as the court jester. Though these two lacked the respect of the others, they held the most loyalty and wisdom for the king. William Shakespeare teaches that power and wealth do not provide wisdom, but wisdom can be hidden in the words of a loyal fool.
The Fool and Cordelia are the primary caretakers of King Lear in the play. When one is present, the other does not need to be. The Fool does not come into the play until after Cordelia is banished, and she does not come back until after the Fool disappears. The king has a special bond with the Fool; he is the only one who can criticize the king. At the beginning of the play, King Lear tells his three daughters to tell him how much they love him in order to receive their inheritance. Goneril and Regan exaggerate and …show more content…

After the Fool disappears, the king is spotted, “As mad and deranged as the stormy sea, singing loudly, wearing a crown of nettles, thorns, hemlock, and all the other weeds that grow in our cornfields” (Shakespeare 225). Though the Fool’s part is not big, it is a key element to the main character of the book. King Lear’s actions are heavily affected by the Fool’s. The Fools is like a map; when the king has the Fool, he has guidance. He does not always use it, but it takes him some places. When the map disappears, the king is completely loss. A map is only useful if read and

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