In "King Lear" the central character, King Lear himself goes through a process of self-development as the tragedy of Lear begins to unfold in the very beginning of the play. The themes surrounding this characters development are self-knowledge; the recurring images of sight and blindness, identity and consciousness and the variety of literary techniques used by Shakespeare to portray these themes are imagery, symbolism and irony.

The character of Lear starts deteriorating after he hands over his kingdom to his daughters, and expels Cordelia from the kingdom. It is ironic how everyone except Lear sees the truth of the matter and how everyone recognizes his lack of self-knowledge, in the quest of which Lear develops his character-"Yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself." In this line Lear's own daughter, Regan recognizes the fact that her father does not know himself. King Lear in the play often questions his own identity-"Is this Lear?" "Where are his eyes?" In these lines Lear questions himself as if he has forgotten who he is, forgotten his identity, his status, which is ironic to his self-development stage. Another part of the play which is also ironic to the process of his developing as a character as a whole is, when he rips his clothes, this ripping of the clothes symbolises his ripping away his identity as well as the stripping and loss of his status-something

Some common words found in the essay are:
King Lear, Earl Kent, , Dover Gloucester's, king lear, character development, cordelia's love,
Approximate Word count = 641
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)