Had Gloucester not been blind towards the truth concerning his sons, and had he not “stumbled when I saw,” then perhaps Edmund never would have been able to set his plan in motion. However, here Gloucester’s hamartia comes into play, namely that even when he could see, he was blind. As with Lear, it is not until he loses his sight that he truly sees, which can be noticed in Act 4, scene 5 when Gloucester says: “Methinks y’are better spoken” to Edgar disguised as Tom. Furthermore, one central question is repeatedly raised during the course of the play, namely what are human beings, basically?
King Lear explores what it means to be human, and are we made human by social amenities?
Throughout the play, Shakespeare never answers the question of what makes us human, instead he gives the audience material to solve it themselves. One example is in Act 3, scene 4 when Lear says: “Unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal…” here we can note, how according to Shakespeare humans released from civilization is no more than a two-legged …show more content…
If we are made human through civilization is goodness, then natural, or is it just a part of what we are been taught?
Edmund challenges the notion of humanism when he says “[A]s if some universal power pushed us into evil deeds… I would have been what I am even if the most virginal star in heavens had twinkled at my conception.” In this soliloquy Edmund clearly disputes the idea that his life is controlled by any outside force, he makes it astoundingly clear that he himself decided to be evil, and therefore in Edmund’s mind, being evil is a choice. In the end of the play, Edmund, Goneril and Regan’s plan fails, because the wheel of fortune limits one’s ambition, and as such, you can only rise so high before you will fall. Right before Edmund dies, he realizes that he failed by saying “the wheel has come full circle,” here Edmund shows that he is aware of the fact that he reached too far, and as a consequence, he pays with his