Harmony and Happiness in King Lear Anonymous College

Throughout King Lear, characters intrinsically desire happiness, using other pursuits instrumentally to achieve their final goal of personal satisfaction. Through this quest, Shakespeare makes it clear that in order for one to find happiness, one must pursue a virtuous life in which one understands his place among other humans and the rest of nature in a harmonious manner. However, in King Lear, Shakespeare establishes that once happiness and harmony is established, the sense of harmony which was made clear takes a less positive nature, and it is shown that the harmony so desirable before is not derived from a sense of equality and worth, but from an overarching meaninglessness of social constructs and individuality in a world in which no individual can be better than the others due to the vast nonexistence of true goodness beyond that of the social construct.

King Lear is a play which deals with themes such as pain and of the pursuit of happiness. For the main characters, unhappiness comes when one becomes too focused on pride fed by love and flattery from others instead of self confidence and knowledge of self both alone and in relation to ones surroundings. King Lear fell into a madness after he was made to feel unimportant...