Duty and Christian Love in King Lear and The Screwtape Letters
This paper examines the shared moral vision of William Shakespeare's King Lear and C.S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, arguing that despite their different forms — Golden Age tragedy and epistolary satire — both works advance a distinctly Christian ethic. The paper traces how pride and self-interest lead characters to ruin, while duty, humility, and sacrificial love — embodied by Cordelia and Kent in Lear and by Wormwood's patient in Lewis — point toward redemption. Drawing on Pauline scripture and Shakespeare's Sonnet 116, the analysis shows how both authors agree that authentic love is active, persevering, and other-oriented, and that subordinating the self to God rather than to appetite or pride constitutes the highest standard of human living.
- Introduction: A Shared Christian Perspective: Both works share a Christian ethic of duty and sacrifice
- Wishful Thinking, Pride, and the Satanic Trap: Selfish versus other-oriented hope in Lear and Lewis
- Befuddlement, Duty, and the Path to God: How distraction and clarity shape characters' moral paths
- Love in Action: The Pauline Standard: Pauline love as active duty, not mere profession
- Allegiance, War, and the Golden Rule: Duty, war, and the Golden Rule across both texts
- The Meaning of True Love: Persevering love in Cordelia, Kent, and Wormwood's patient
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What makes this paper effective
- The comparative framework is clearly established in the opening paragraph and sustained throughout, keeping both texts in dialogue rather than treating them as separate discussions.
- The paper grounds its argument in primary textual evidence — direct quotations from Lewis, Shakespeare, and Pauline scripture — and uses them to build a coherent moral claim rather than merely summarizing plot.
- The conclusion returns neatly to the introduction's central thesis (sanity and goodness, self-love versus love of God), giving the essay a satisfying circular structure.
Key academic technique demonstrated
The paper demonstrates effective analogical comparison: it identifies a shared underlying framework (Christian ethics) in two generically and historically distant texts, then uses specific character parallels — Cordelia as a Christ figure, Wormwood's patient as a Lear-like identity crisis — to show the framework operating in both works simultaneously. This move allows the student to generate original insight rather than simply listing similarities.
Structure breakdown
The essay opens with a thesis-rich introduction that names the central claim and previews the argument. Subsequent body paragraphs each develop one thematic strand: wishful thinking and pride; befuddlement and duty; love in action per Pauline scripture; allegiance and war; and persevering love via Sonnet 116. A summative conclusion restates the thesis with fuller evidence behind it. The Works Cited list follows MLA conventions.
Introduction: A Shared Christian Perspective
The underlying perspective that both King Lear and The Screwtape Letters share may be called a Christian perspective, in which duty, humility, and sacrifice are indirectly valued as the highest ideals — though, of course, Screwtape also notes that "duty comes before pleasure" (Lewis 21). While Cordelia represents Christ in Lear, the ordeals of Wormwood's patient resemble the crisis of identity that Lear suffers. The relationship between sanity and goodness is established in both works, and that relationship serves to underscore the main theme: the greatness of Christian living, and the tragedy and violence that result from unchristian living. The texts thus complement one another, and both agree on man's place in society — that he should subordinate himself to God rather than to Self, appetite, or Satanic pride. While the material is very different (Lear is high art, a Golden Age tragedy; Screwtape is epistolary satire), the message is the same regarding our ethical responsibilities. This paper explores the themes that unite these two works and shows how they ultimately point to a standard of living in which man "puts on" Christ rather than asserting Self to his own detriment.
Wishful Thinking, Pride, and the Satanic Trap
"There is wishful thinking in Hell as well as on Earth," states Lewis (i) in the introduction to Screwtape. This observation applies equally to Shakespeare's King Lear, because there is much "wishful thinking" demonstrated by both Lear and his two wickedly plotting daughters. Their wishful thinking is ultimately vain, and the reason why it is vain can be found both in their respective ends and in the illuminating contrast between theirs and Cordelia's — if her "thinking" can be called "wishful" at all. If Cordelia hopes, it is not, as St. Paul states, in herself, but rather in her God. Her hope is that her father might be well and his kingdom saved from her wicked sisters. She does not rejoice in herself but in the goodness that comes from above, as both she and St. Paul indicate. Though a play about pagans, King Lear may thus be said to have a Christian theme. Lear and the two wicked daughters, on the other hand, wish and plot for their own pleasure and fortune. Cordelia alone is self-sacrificing in the family, and along with Kent acts as a kind of guardian angel. Their guardianship, moreover, springs from a sense of duty, which both understand compels them to love Lear — not with any false or emotional display of affection but with actual care and compassion, which can seem cold in comparison with the flattering words of the dissembling daughters.
As Lear shows and Lewis intimates, there are two kinds of "wishful thinking": that which is selfish and self-centered, and that which is other-oriented and concerned with a greater good. Lear gives away his kingdom because he wants to retire and take it easy, and he goes about this plan in the worst possible, most self-serving manner, distributing his kingdom to the biggest public flatterers of his person. He is falling for the trap of Screwtape, who advises his nephew to lure individuals to Hell by appealing to their pride. Lear succumbs to this temptation at the very beginning of the play, thus setting up the conflict between Satanic pride and ambition on one side and Christian humility and devotion on the other. Although there is no mention of Christ in Lear, the themes are unmistakable.
Befuddlement, Duty, and the Path to God
These themes are also apparent in The Screwtape Letters. In his first letter to Wormwood, Screwtape asserts that the devil's primary aim is to "fuddle" the patient — not to use reason or logic, because these are tools that will lead one away from Satan toward God. Rather, the devil's job is to overwhelm the patient with ordinary day-to-day affairs and with "real life," so that he gives no thought to that much more pressing and greater question of human existence — Why am I here? — which could lead to the implementation of a Christian life. Cordelia and Kent both ask and answer the question of their existence in relation to their lord, Lear, and that is what gives the two characters their nobility. Edgar and Lear are, on the contrary, befuddled — the former only dramatically so as to escape detection, the latter genuinely, because he has given himself over to the ordinary affairs of "real life": comfort, retirement, and his retinue. Edgar's care for the mad Lear, however, restores some of his own sanity, direction, and sense of duty — a point that indicates argument is not the only path to Heaven, but that care and compassion also lead there.
Love in Action: The Pauline Standard
What both Lewis and Shakespeare show is in perfect agreement with the Pauline scriptures: "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal… If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing" (1 Cor. 13:1–2). Love — or charity — is what truly and most efficaciously binds man to God: "And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love" (1 Cor. 13:13). Wormwood's patient converts to Christianity via reason, but without action on his part — love for fellow man and love for God — his faith is meaningless. So, too, with Lear and his children: he asks his daughters to show how much they love him, and while Goneril and Regan profess their love, they do not show it in action. Meanwhile, Cordelia asserts that she loves her father as much as duty obliges — "according to my bond; no more nor less" (1.1) — and this is no small amount, as her subsequent actions demonstrate. Thus, both works share the Christian theme of the indispensable importance of love in action.
These works also agree on our place in society, even though Lewis writes in a more immediate historical moment. Shakespeare had one foot in the medieval world and one foot in the modern world (White), and so he represents a link between contemporary society and the Old World. Lewis stresses the importance of that Old World, and the two authors can therefore work together to provide a "way back" to the ideals that each considers essential. As Kent says, that way back is not an easy one — the heart must "break" (5.2) because it can be filled with too much vanity or "self-pitying" (Lewis 22). There is no passage through the "tough" world (Shakespeare 5.2) except through the breaking of the heart and the giving of all, as Cordelia shows.
Works Cited
Lewis, C.S. The Screwtape Letters. Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
Lincoln, Abraham. "First Inaugural Address." Bartleby. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
New Testament. BibleHub. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
Shakespeare, William. "Sonnet 116." Shakespeare Online. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of King Lear. Gutenberg. Web. 29 Apr. 2015.
White, David Allen. "Shakespeare." MN: St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary, 1996. Print.
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