Aging King Lear’s fatal error—disowning loyal Cordelia while rewarding deceitful daughters Goneril and Regan—plunges his kingdom into chaos. Stripped of power and sanity, Lear confronts betrayal, nature’s fury, and his own mortality, while the loyal Gloucester family mirrors his suffering. Blending existential despair with poetic grandeur, this searing tale of familial ruin and fleeting redemption remains Shakespeare’s darkest meditation on power, madness, and the cost of truth.