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Morrie Schwartz: the Epitome of How to Live Life

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Morrie Schwartz: the Epitome of How to Live Life
In the play King Lear by William Shakespeare and the memoir Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom, the two main characters King Lear and Morrie Schwartz both experience a major downfall within their lives. Each man endures their hardship in their own way, but Morrie Schwartz epitomized the correct way to live life – the way we all should. King Lear viewed aging and death as a time to be unburdened and carefree, and family as servants who should obey his every command. He viewed life in a selfish perspective; if something bad happened to him he would completely wallow in self-pity. Whereas Morrie viewed aging and death as a time to teach others and family as a give love, get love situation that he could not live without. Morrie viewed life in a completely positive and selfless perspective, making him the epitome of the perfect way to live life.
King Lear had a very different perspective than Morrie on how to live life at the beginning of the play. Realizing his old age, Lear saw this as a time to be carefree and unburdened by responsibility: “Know that we have divided / In three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intent / To shake all cares and business from our age, / Conferring them on younger strengths while we / Unburdened crawl toward death…” (I i 40-43). In this quote, King Lear is describing his plan to divide his kingdom into three parts and giving it to his three daughters so that he can enjoy a little peace of mind in his old age. This shows that King Lear viewed old age and death as a time to kick back and relax. Instead of just giving his daughters their share of the kingdom, he makes them declare their love for him and compete against each other for a bigger share of land. This plan, however, backfires on him when his youngest daughter, Cordelia, doesn’t give him the exaggerated answer he was searching for. This infuriates him; which leads him to banishing Cordelia and splitting the kingdom among his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan: “Here I
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