King Lear inspires many philosophical questions; chief among them is the existence of divine justice. This concept was particularly important during the Elizabethan era, because religion played such a significant role in everyday life. Religious leaders directed people to expect that they would have to answer to a higher authority, expressing some hope that good would triumph and be rewarded over evil. But throughout King Lear, good does not triumph without honorable characters suffering terrible …showed first 75 words of 697 total…

…showed last 75 words of 697 total…own honest servant; Edmund is killed by the brother he sought to usurp; both Goneril and Regan are dead, one murdered and the other a suicide; the obedient steward, Oswald, is dead, a victim of his own compulsion to obey. In the end, no easy answer surfaces to the question of divine justice, except that perhaps man must live as if divine justice exists, even if it's only a product of rich and wishful imaginations.