Whether Albany Provides a Hopeful and Comforting Presence in 'King Lear' Divyadharshini Ragupathy 12th Grade

As an audience, we crave comfort and reassurance that characters in the play, who we pity (ie. Lear) will not be harmed or the harming of them will be able to be prevented. Moreover as the tragedy in the play is unrelenting, Shakespeare uses theatrical devices to ease the audience’s anxieties. As for Albany, although he could be considered one of the only decent characters in the tragic universe of King Lear, and therefore someone who provides us with the hope that not all social and moral order is lost, he is not wholly comforting in the sense that he will be able to stop the villains’ evil. This is especially before he undergoes a dramatic change, in act 4, when he becomes a little less hesitant in his actions and more able to stand up to Goneril, and the villains.

Firstly, Shakespeare has engineered the play so that Albany is never present when the villains are plotting revenge against Lear at the start of the play. For instance, he is not present when Goneril and Regan are saying that they “must do something, and i’ the’ heat”. Plus, as Albany leaves just before this conversation happens, Shakespeare emphasizes his ignorance to the situation, and thus his complete incapacity to stop it. Moreover, the fact that he is not...