Throughout King Lear, fate plays various roles. Some characters believe in a predetermined
life and blame fate for their misfortune, while others laugh at the idea of
fate. Also, while some elements of the
plot seem destined, others seem to be caused by the characters’ free will.
When
Edmund plots to take his father’s inheritance, he turns his father against his younger
brother, Edgar, in order to gain Gloucester’s favor. Edmund makes it seem like Edgar is plotting
to kill his father, so that he can have the inheritance to himself, which he
would not have had originally because he is an illegitimate son. Gloucester blames the nearing eclipse and
alignment of the stars for his bad fortune of his youngest son “betraying” him. He believes that some higher power, or the bodies
of the solar system, has control over his life. Edmund, on the other hand, laughs at the idea
of fate. He believes it is foolish to
think that a higher power, especially the alignment of the stars, controls one’s
life. Nevertheless, it was he who
manipulated the fate of his family, not a higher power as Gloucester suspects.
Many
characters use the term “fortune” to describe coincidence, luck, or fate. King
Lear describes the bad fortune of his family splitting apart and considers for
a time if it is an act of fate or merely a coincidence. It seems to be fate that the British win the war
at the end, which decides Cordelia and King Lear’s fate of being captured and
then dying. Edmund promises to capture
Cordelia and Lear if the British won the war, so it is plausible that a higher
power decided that the British would win.
On the other hand, it appears that Goneril and Regan used their free
will to destroy their family to gain power and the love of Edmund. Usually blatantly immoral actions, such as destroying
family ties for one’s own gain, poisoning a sister, and committing suicide, are
acts of free will. Goneril and Regan
both turned against Lear after falsifying their love for him in order to have
their own power, which they decided by their free will. They were not destined to destroy their
family and contribute to the king’s insanity.
It was also not fate or a higher being that decided their deaths.
Interestingly,
fate and free will work hand in hand to decide the outcome of King Lear. Although there seems to be more instances of
free will than fate, fate does play a significant role in the end. Most characters, like Gloucester, believe
that a higher power controls their lives. This belief in fate plays an important role in
the characters’ lives, which, in turn, makes the reader question if fate really
does play as important of a role as the characters believe, or if it is only
each character’s free will that decides the outcome.