Explore the theme of Madness in 'King Lear' by William Shakespeare.

Madness can be identified in a number of characters in Shakespeare's 'King Lear', and such mental tumult plays a vital role in determining the play's most significant events. Madness is primarily seen within King Lear himself, who becomes progressively unstable due to his own disintegrating status and loss of familial love. Lear cannot adapt successfully to a lower social role within the 'Great Chain of Being'-(a prominent ideological stance favoured in the Jacobean era)- and therefore, he develops an all consuming madness due to his loss of identity as king. Such self-disintegration and degradation of status is a product of the betrayal of his two eldest daughters, Goneril and Regan, whose avaricious desire for power led to their gaining of Lear's wealth. Yet, they then abandon Lear- economically and emotionally -therefore provoking his social descent and blurring of identity . As a consequence, Lear's madness develops throughout the play, intensifying as he eventually loses all power and sense of normality in Shakespeare's socially inverted kingdom.