Describe the storm scene and comment on its dramatic significance in King Lear

The storm scene in Shakespeare's King Lear has a dramatic significance and it is to be noted with great care. The storm and hurricane are presented by Shakespeare in many of his tragedies.  For example, we may refer Macbeth, The Tempest, and Julius -Caesar. Similarly, in King Lear Shakespeare

, we also find the storm scene.  The storm scene in this play plays a very vital role in the development of the plot. Now we will give a description of the storm scene in King Lear with a critical note on its significance.

The Scene IV of Act -III is widely known as the storm scene in the tragedy,  King Lear. The scene has dramatic importance and symbolic significance in the context of the play.  It constitutes the dramatic center of the whole tragedy imparting a contribution to the development of the main plot. The scene also helps us to identify the heroic qualities of King Lear. In fact,  the storm that Lear faces destroys all haughtiness,  egotism, and arbitrariness of Lear. The storm so presents him as a new Lear who is moved by sympathy and love toward humanity. 

Being disgusted with Regan, Lear comes out of her Palace in a mood of fury.  But he does not know he will go. Neither Regan nor Goneril makes any effort to stop their father from going out into the storm.  The combined cruelty of his two daughters has given him a great shock .So, Lear rushes out into the dark and stormy night in a careless mood . The storm is blowing with its full force. Lear calls upon the winds to blow with all their fury . Lear's soul is expressed when he says,

"I am a man more sinned against sinning."

Now Lear has no shelter over him. It seems that at the moment nature has thrown him from his happiness to misery.  Already, Lear has been thrown from the Palace by his two cruel daughters.  But the cruelty of the storm seems to Lear less torturing than that by his daughters when Kent requests him into the novel, King Lear quotes-

"But where the greater malady is fixed lesser is scare felt."

The storm scene has dramatic significance. It also presents the utter helplessness of human beings on his earth and makes Lear feel the condition of the lower people. Once upon a time,  Lear was a king.  He did not know what suffering or sorrow was. As a king, he used to lead a happy and comfortable life. But now he is powerless and shelterless in the midst of rough weather.

However, except in the storm scene, we nowhere find Lear sympathetic towards human beings rather he was haughty and proud. Thus the storm makes a psychological change in Lear. Shakespeare has also presented the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, Through this storm scene From this scene it transpires that the Good must go in disguise and Evil may go out openly. Thus Lear's struggle is going on in the human world.  The remarkable development of a change from ignorance to knowledge has taken place in this scene in the case of Lear. Lear grows wiser and kinder than he has been in the beginning. It is in this scene that Lear begins to feel a kind of kindness and pity for the poor.