In Shakespeare's "King Lear", death and killing are abundant. Friendships, perfect or imperfect are overshadowed by the destruction of relationship after relationship. King Lear is based on treason, jealousy, cruelty, betrayal, evil, love, forgiveness, and death. The final message of the play seems to be that in the end, the good or the virtuous are the victors, although it is hard to absorb that after such a display of wickedness. From the very beginning of the play King Lear himself unknowingly creates enemies. First he banishes Cordelia, the only daughter that is his true friend. Then he decides to split the kingdom between Reagan and Goneril, his two cunning other daughters who turn on him. Kent, Lear's loyal nobleman, is also a true friend. The two have a falling out because Kent is a wise man and he knows that what the king has done is a big mistake. He scolds the king and is sympathetic to Cordelia'

There were also a few relationships that seemed to be friendships at the beginning of the play but turn very quickly into associations full of deception and exploitation. We see this throughout the play from beginning to end in many of the characters. Lear's two older daughters profess their love for him and he foolishly believes them. There really is no friendship there. Glouster's bastard son Edmund also pretends to love his father dearly and is clever enough to convince him that his real son, Edgar is the enemy. Reagan and Goneril's friendship as sisters is also a farce and we see this as each battles for Edmund's love wishing harm on the other over it. The bond between Reagan, Goneril, and Edmund is probably the most troubling because the each one of them was a good friend to evil and they just fed off of one another until it was clear that each ones motive was power, greed, and destruction

Relationships are an extremely complicated subject as we can see from this play.

Aristotle was a great and well- known philosopher. His views are interpreted and argued about over and over again. His ability to interpret and classify friendships is unmatched for his time but I am not always in agreement with his point of view. He introduces two types of friendships, perfect and imperfect. Within the two types of friendships he discusses the three main reasons why someone might become friendly with another. They are: either because he is good, useful, or pleasant. He identifies these as the three bases for friendship. He talks a lot about virtue, saying that if two people are equally virtuous then their friendship can be perfect, unless there is a large age difference like father and son, or a sex difference like husband and wife. In that case the friendship will be imperfect. Talking more about imperfect friendships, Aristotle says they are basically held together because of advantages or pleasure. The real friend is the one who loves the person for who they are and not what they have to offer. Good friends also wish good things on them rather than envying their

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Approximate Word count = 1396
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)