"MADNESS, POWER, AND IDENTITY: A CRITICAL EXPLORATION OF HUMAN FRAGILITY IN SHAKESPEARE’S KING LEAR"

Abstract

William Shakespeare’s King Lear remains one of the most profound tragedies in Western literature, interrogating the fragility of human existence through the intertwined themes of madness, power, and identity. This research paper examines how Shakespeare presents Lear’s psychological decline, the disintegration of authority, and the crisis of selfhood within a framework of political instability and familial betrayal. The central argument contends that Lear’s descent into madness is not merely a personal tragedy but a metaphor for the collapse of order and the vulnerability of human identity when detached from power and recognition.

Drawing upon intertextual connections, this study situates King Lear alongside classical conceptions of tragedy such as Aristotle’s Poetics, which emphasize catharsis and the tragic flaw, while also engaging with Renaissance humanist discourses on kingship and morality. Additionally, Michel Foucault’s exploration of madness as a social construct provides a critical lens for understanding Lear’s displacement from authority to abjection. The paper also considers the play’s use of blindness—both literal and metaphorical—as a symbolic commentary on human limitations in perceiving truth and sustaining identity.

Ultimately, this research demonstrates that King Lear dramatizes the precariousness of power and the instability of selfhood, offering a universal meditation on mortality, justice, and human vulnerability. By foregrounding madness as both a destructive and revelatory force, Shakespeare reveals the paradox of human fragility: the loss of reason becomes a site for truth, and the collapse of authority opens the possibility of moral insight. This analysis contributes to ongoing scholarly debates by emphasizing how Lear’s tragedy resonates with contemporary concerns about power, subjectivity, and the boundaries of human endurance.