By Kyle Garza
Upon a first reading, King Lear seems like yet another Shakespearean tragedy wherein foolish characters, hanging their faults on their sleeves, lament their undoing in an unjust and cruel world. The characters all seem to fall into two worldview camps: One thinks that cruel higher powers torment us merely for their own sport, and we must endure their harsh torture as petty toys; the other thinks that the majority of evil in the world is the result of human sins, and there is a higher arbiter who orchestrates justice in the natural world. The latter in the play not only capture Shakespeare’s thematic intent more accurately, but they also demonstrate the core elements of the Christian gospel throughout King Lear’s five acts. It is clear by the end of the play that the wicked receive their comeuppances in a world with orchestrated justice, that the wicked cannot justify their wickedness by the predetermination of the stars, and that the characters of Edgar and Cordelia serve as Christ-figures that anchor the play to the Christian gospel.
