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William Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’ is one of his four great tragedies and one of his most acclaimed plays. His greatest tragedies come from his second and third periods. Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet come under the second period whereas the third period includes Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth, Antony, and Cleopatra. Self-delusion is the tragic flaw of the tragic protagonist in this play. Recent criticisms of King Lear were alert to how Lear’s status as a king and as a father is implied in various planes of actions. The third kind of relationship that is, the relationship between the master and the servant has rarely been isolated for a critical approach. It is not because of that the theme or motif is not popular, on the other hand, it is because of our false assumption that it is obvious.
‘We are aware that our ‘significant theme’ is by no means confined to King Lear. Lear merely seems to dramatize it more fully and complexly than usual, and so to offer the best occasion for extended comment. A mere enumeration, however, of names like Buckingham, Hubert, Adam, Iago and Cassio, Menas and Enobarbus, the Steward in Timon of Athens, Pisanio, Camillo and Paulina, Gonzalo, and Wolsey, and a reminder of how often such characters are forced into generalizing statements concerning their relations with their respective masters, will perhaps in itself suffice to indicate the persistence of Shakespeare’s preoccupation with the subject. In a few suggestive pages (pp. 277-282) in Shakespeare and the Rival Traditions (New York, 1952), Alfred Harbage has sketched the main outlines of the master-servant relationship between Shakespeare and the Elizabethan popular theatre general. ‘ I quote from George Lyman Kittredge, ed. The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Boston, 1936), pp. 1197-1239.
Nevertheless, the theme of service in this is obvious, we feel, only in its presence and not its meaning. Its presence is not only felt through the scenes between master and servant but even more pervasively through verbal repetition. Service and loyalty can be considered as a big part of the plot of King Lear. Among the characters who show service and loyalty to the king, one such is Kent. He is been portrayed as a completely loyal one to the king, even after he was banished from the kingdom by Lear. He realizes the false identities of the king’s daughters and perceives that Cordelia is the only one who is loyal to his king. This must be the most important reason Kent is loyal to his king. There are kinsmen behind every king who support them out of patriotism or extra individualistic intention. Kent is one of these few men. King Lear is a tragic character but despite losing everything and everyone else, he has always possessed one constant: Kent. It is conjectured that Kent commits suicide to follow suit. Kent finds his life so meaningless without his service to King Lear that he would take his own life to further serve his master.
Kent has proven unwavering fealty to the unstable King Lear, going so way to take on a completely new identity, and finds his life to be without purpose if he is now not serving Lear, even in death. King Lear can also be the tragic protagonist of the play, but Kent had misplaced the whole thing as well: his title, his master, and his identity. The persona of Kent is additionally tragic because, despite working relentlessly, his entire vocation is misplaced when Lear dies. Therefore, he should take his personal life, due to the fact there is no longer a purpose to live. Kent, though shown alive at the end of the play, is no longer spared the tragedy that is King Lear. He demonstrates that loyalty is honorable; a trait revered by way of everybody. But at the fee of his very own identity, the loyal Kent is turned into an ever-loyal Caius. Service can require sacrifice, but the bond between grasp and servant must now not ask for the sacrifice of the servant’s essence.
The final words of Kent that have sparked the speculation of his suicide are also the most telling: ‘I have a journey, sir, shortly to go. My master calls me; I must not say no’ (Shakespeare V.iii.394-395). The Duke of Albany had offered Kent back his earldom, yet Kent refused. Kent has dedicated his entire life to service for his master. The identity of his master is easily discernible. As a slave to the elements, Lear finds himself a member of the confraternity of degraded servants: Kent, Edgar, the Fool, and, finally, Gloucester. Lear’s imaginative and prescient of typical suffering evoked via the tempest expresses his new perception of the variety of bonds that underlie all human relationships, that of a common humanity. Service, for our purposes, may additionally be the notion of the formalization of relationships between folks of exclusive social or political rank. So a lot is implicit in the doctrine of hierarchy. A person obeys or ministers to his superior on the social scale, and that most fulfilling ministers to his superior. But an integral thing about this relationship in Lear is its feudal character: ice works two ways; it implies rights as nicely as duties, on every side. The reciprocity counseled by the period ‘bond’, where privileges are granted at the same time that obligations are imposed, is the circumstance that justifies service in principle, in practice, it is exactly the denial of reciprocity that is the first of Lear’s tragic violations. By refusing to honor the reciprocal force of the bond tying him to his inferiors, Lear cuts the bond, ‘cracks’ it, and so lets unfastened the forces of disorder, division, and disservice that are to overwhelm the kingdom.
Service and loyalty, both of these things are very important to make a person successful because they prove him to be trustworthy to his peers. It’s great with the way Kent was loyal to his king even though Lear made some mistakes. We could believe this is what made him one of the few survivors in the end. It is said that only the strong survive, and service and loyalty are what make Kent strong.
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