Explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents the theme of control in King Lear

The subversion and loss of control serves to be an important meta-narrative in the Shakespearean tragedy of King Lear. Firstly, Shakespeare explores the loss of control through a lens of gender, as the patriarch of Lear loses control to his daughters, a subversion of the Patriarchal nature of both the Elizabethan period and the Hobbesian Divine Chain of being. Secondly, Shakespeare explores a loss of control within King Lear himself, as he descends into madness following his loss of control of the realm, with the idea of bodypolitic, where the Kings own body reflecting the realm, highlighting the disorder the realm itself is being thrown into. Lastly, Shakespeare explores a lack of divine control over the world through a nihilistic lens, retrospectively analysed in the 20th Century by critics such as Kermode to emphasise a world in which neither God nor morality held control.