King Lear's Learning

William F. Blissett once said, “Recognition mitigates suffering. Learning always has something of pleasure about it, and so, no matter how painful the realization, how destructive its outcome, there is always an element of gain and growth.” In Shakespeare’s King Lear, characters learn and grow through suffering.
King Lear is only able to see the truth and grow as a person after losing everything that is important to him. At the beginning of the play, King Lear is blinded by his self-image. He is draped in “Robes and furr’d gowns” (IV, vi, 181) that provide him with great pride. After King Lear loses his kingdom and his pride and is in a state of suffering, he becomes enlightened to the equality of mankind. He philosophizes that “man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal”. Later on in the pla...