King Lear

King Lear puts a different spin on my question. Lear must shed his memories in order to see what has been in front of him all along. At the beginning of the play Lear has power. This power corrupts his vision of truth, he can not see that Cordelia is the only daughter of his who honestly loves him. It is not until the end of the play when Lear finally realizes this, but it is too late. He lived his life with power, but once he no longer has that power he can see his life for what it really was. He must ignore his memories of life in power in order to determine what he should do, or maybe not ignore his memories, just realize that he needs to act differently than he once did.

At a point in the play Lear starts going mad, which brings up more questions; does madness transform memories? Or can memories be transformed on purpose? Can we ever really forget? Do our good or bad memories have a greater affect on the people we become? In the end Lear is a broken man, he reached his downfall because of everything that happened in his life. His bad memories won. But do we always fall if our bad memories preside over our good memories? Or do we prosper?