In King Lear, the themes and messages of the play are communicated to the audience using a devastating combination of irony; reversal of situation and fortune; and paradox, underlining the heartbreaking truth of the futility of human existence presented in the work. This method is particularly effective because it highlights the changing nature of the course of events. How one interprets this depends on whether one believes there are gods of some kind in the play: if supernatural beings exist in the world of the play and control events, then Gloucester's lines: "Like flies to the wild boys are we for the men" gods, / They kill us for their sport" may be true, and if so this reduces the desolation of the final picture because at least the gods have derived some pleasure from their "sport" and there is a semblance of meaning to the events. However there is much evidence to suggest that these gods do not exist: belief in such beings is heavily satirised throughout and seen as a weakness and an excuse by those characters who do not believe in higher powers Edmund says of Gloucester's belief: Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned”? Get an original essay “This is the excellent nonsense of the world, of which when we are sick of luck we often make ourselves guilty of the excess of our behavior our disasters the sun, the moon and the stars; as if we were evil by necessity, foolish by celestial compulsion? An admirable escape from the man whore, to entrust his goatish nature to the accusation of a star! (I.ii.109-18)If this vision is believed, and it is very convincing, then humanity's sentence is heavy. If there are no gods directing events, then the evil of the play is directly and completely the result of human actions, and Lear's invective against sex in the Act IV scene rings true. Lear says that it is not adultery that is the problem, since "Gloucester's bastard son / was kinder to his father than my daughters / found himself between lawful sheets" (lines 113-15), but the act itself of sex, simply because it results in the continuation of the human race, and since the very nature of human beings is evil, this is a bad thing: "But down to the waist the gods inherit, / Below is all the devil's" (lines 124-25). Procreation is bad because it perpetuates the cycle of futility that is human life. A third view might be that gods exist, but have no influence on the world. This is supported by Edgar's line: "The gods are just, and of our pleasant vices / Make instruments to afflict us" (V.iii.170-1). One reading of this phrase could be to interpret "just" as non-interfering, especially since there is no sense of justice in the work, and therefore the meaning of the phrase is that "our pleasant vices", i.e. human sins , I am solely responsible for our suffering. This view has many of the same implications as the second: belief in a divine presence that has ultimate control over events is a way of excusing the actions of a fundamentally evil species. Indeed it is this willingness to accept many of the play's events as preordained or predestined that allows many of the atrocities to occur. When the servant stands up before Cornwall in scene vii of Act III saying, "Hold your hand, my lord" (line 71), it is the first time anyone stands up and says, "stop." Up to this point there has been a worrying lack of human intervention in the terrible events, and together with the actions of Albany and Edgar later in the play this gives some hope for the state of human existence, although the overwhelming picture is ofdesolation. and suffering. The question of whether or not there are gods in the work who intervene in events is fundamental to the power of the work and profoundly influences any reading of the meaning. I believe that there are no gods in the world of drama and that this increases the power of ironic instances; reversal of situation and fortune; and paradox in the work, because these are therefore entirely consequences of human actions. This increases the tragedy because ironic incidents are often partly the fault of the victim of irony, paradoxes directly reflect on the nature of human existence; and any reversal results from human actions and therefore can be interpreted meaningfully rather than dismissed as the whim of the gods. Therefore, on the many occasions in the play where the characters invoke the gods to help them in some way, there is an underlying irony because in reality their prayers will not be answered. The most powerful example of this is in the final scene of the play, when Albany says of Cordelia, "The gods defend her!" and the caption that immediately follows reads: "Lear re-enters, with Cordelia dead in his arms." So much for the gods who defend her! This is undoubtedly the most devastatingly dark moment of the work, and of all literature, also because of this irony. Perhaps the greatest irony of the play is the parallel rehabilitation of Lear and Gloucester from "foolish, fond old [men]" to men of insight. The irony is that by the time they have gained this insight, they are both unable to make use of it in any meaningful way and cannot change the course of events: in the larger context of the play's final outcome, they may or may not it happened at all. A great paradox is implicit in this irony: to use power one must have a clear and uncorrupted vision; but the very act of having power clouds and corrupts intuition such that one is unable to use that power virtuously. This is illustrated by the fact that Lear gains his insight only after having renounced all the trappings of power and experienced being an "unaccommodated man" (III.iv.101), but having been reduced to this level he cannot use the his intuition for Bene. Likewise, Gloucester "sees" only after his eyes have been gouged out, "stumbled when [he] saw" (IV.i.20), and being blind cannot do anything useful with his clarity of sight. This ironic incongruity The contrast between intuition and power is again demonstrated in the Fool and Kent, who are both very cunning but cannot exploit this cunning due to their position: they have no power. The fool's job is to tell Lear when he is wrong that he is the only person Lear allows to do so and interpret the events in a witty and entertaining way. The tragedy is that Lear never listens to the fool's advice precisely because he is a jester. There is a great bond of affection between the king and his madman, but ultimately the madman is helpless, and it is a harsh irony that Lear never takes his madman seriously. Kent is once again a just, honorable, and courageous character, displaying unwavering love. for his king when he defies exile to help him, but like the foolish Lear he never really listens to him, initially because his judgment is tainted by anger and wounded pride, and later because he is a servant. Kent never "sees" Lear, even when he gets himself put in the stocks to highlight the betrayal of Lear's daughters, and ultimately never fully reconciles with the king because Lear dies before he can realize that it was Kent in disguise of Caius a was so devoted and such a "good guy". Lear thinks that Gaius is "dead and rotten" (V.iii.285), which adds to Kent's tragedy but also to Lear's, as it is another element of the king's unresolved confusion at the momentof his death. The fool leaves without having left any impression on the events of the play, and Kent's only action is to team up with Cordelia, which ultimately results in her death because otherwise she would not have been in the kingdom, even though the His return momentarily makes Lear happy and provides an element of hope, this quickly disappears and only serves to accentuate the already enormous tragedy of the final scenes. So both their roles areessentially futile and unfulfilled. Both Kent and the fool simply disappear when their service is no longer needed: when Lear begins his journey of self-realization he no longer needs the fool to give him commentary on events because he is beginning to see for himself, and after the death of Lear Kent has nothing left to live for, in the same way that after the death of Cordelia Lear does not, and Kent goes to answer his "mistress" death. Lear's final appearance is one of overwhelming confusion and anguish, and he tragically dies without having solved the problem. This. He wonders what all the waste and suffering were for, and dies before he can find an answer; if there really is an answer to be found. This is the final irony of the play: everything was for nothing; suffer for the sake of suffering. This is made even worse by the series of reversals of fortune in this final scene. There seems to be some hope when Edgar kills his brother, as Edmund appears to have recanted and Cordelia and Lear may be saved. However, when Lear enters with Cordelia "dead in his arms", this immediately erases hope and once again highlights the horrible injustice of the play. This shows that Edmund did not recant at all; but that he remained true to his destructive nature to the last and was taking time for his order to kill Cordelia and Lear to be carried out, saying: "But speak thou; / it seems I had something else to say." The irony here is that Edgar and Albany are convinced of this act, and most of Edgar's two long speeches are overly complex and needlessly prolong a story we already know, having performed it on stage. This does Edmund's job for him, and it's truly ironic that Edgar and Albany are seemingly so willing to delay; they completely forget about Lear and Cordelia until Kent reminds them and Albany's reaction is sadly stupid: "Great thing that we forgot!" This is a manifestation of Edmund Burke's statement that "All that is needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing", and given the universal nature of the play's events suggests that humanity is all too ready to "do nothing". ".There is a second inversion when Albany's 'ghost normal ending' (V.iii.295-304), which suggests that the state of the kingdom will return to normal and that "All friends shall taste / The wages of their virtue , and all enemies / The cup of their merits" (302-4), is completely destroyed by Lear's tormented memory that there has been no justice at all, for "[his] poor fool is hanged!" These reversals in the final scene amplify the tragedy, for hope is suggested and then cruelly snatched away Though Lear laments the fickle nature of fate, asking of Cordelia's death: "Why should a dog, a horse, a mouse have life, / And thou. not breathe at all?" the lack of gods and any higher power of fortune necessarily places the blame for Cordelia's death on human actions in the play. Lear himself is guilty to some extent of Cordelia's death because he divided the kingdom and the he banished in the first place, but the suffering he endures as a result of his actions and her fall and subsequent death is completely disproportionate to his,.