In Shakespeare's King Lear, madness is one of the central motifs throughout the entire play. The main three characters that experience madness throughout the play are Edgar, the fool, and of course King Lear. Edgar and Lear experience their madness because of shock towards recent events and their bad luck with fortunes wheel. However ironically enough, the madness that these characters possess is balanced out, because the times when they are the most "insane" are also the times when they acquire the most wisdom.
             The first person to go insane is Edmund in (II, iii, 1-20 "I heard myself proclaimed..."), he has just been disowned by his father and accused by his brother for a crime he did not commit. Edmund claims to have taken on the disguise of an insane person because it is the lowest of all people and at least as an insane person he is someone because he claims that as Edgar he is now no one. However, could it be possible that all this information and his change of luck was just too much information for poor Edgar to handle? He did not really understand what happened one minute he was his father's legimate son, his rightful heir, and the next he was out on the street forced to live in a guise of a crazy person for fear of the price on his own head. Is it not possible that this bad turn of fortune's wheel made him lose his sanity, at least temporarily?
             Edgar however, grows as a character because of his "insane" period regardless of the fact of whether or not it was feigned. Through his madness, he learns to become humble and respect each class of society. Edgar grew up being his father's legitimate son, and being born into nobility. He never had to work for that role before, however through his madness he gradually steps up the ladder. He starts at the bottom and gradually works his way up until the day his disguise is a knight in shining armor where he can fight
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