Here is a brief overview of the five main symbols in King Lear.
HEAVEN
This symbol of transcendence has two meanings in play: grace and wrath.
Positively, the heavens are a source of temper, patience, benediction, and sweetness. Cordelia most embodies these heavenly virtues. We are told “holy water” drops “from her heavenly eyes.”
As the play progresses, the heavens administer plagues and judgment.
STARS
The play juxtaposes two opinions on stars: they are either have no bearing on or determine human action.
Edmund gives voice to the latter. He says, “I should have been that I am / had the maidenliest star in the firmament / twinkled on my bastardizing.”
Kent gives voice to the former as a way of explaining Cordelia’s remarkable nature: “It is the stars, / The stars above us, govern our conditions.”
STONES
Cordelia ironically calls her sisters “The jewels of our father.” Edgar compares his father’s missing eyes to stones: “Met I my father with his bleeding rings, / Their precious stones new lost.” Lear compares men with stones to indict them for not mourning Cordelia’s death: “O, you are men of stones: / Had I your tongues and eyes, I’ld use them so / That heaven’s vault should crack.”
Stones are typically associated with the law and ethics. In this play, they are associated with wrathful evaluation.
ANIMALS
The play connects animals with sanctions or judgment.
In the first act, Lear compares himself to a dragon: “Come not between the dragon and his wrath,” he tells Kent. Exposed to the elements in Act 3, Lear reflects on Poor Tom: “unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, / forked animal as thou art.” The natural state of man is one exposed to, and perhaps deserving of, wrath.
SPIRITS
Aptly, the symbol for succession is associated with the play’s two disinherited children. Edgar disguises himself as “A spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.” Cordelia reappears to rescue her father, and Lear says, “You are a spirit, I know: when did you die?”
Both children are means of grace, but they are not enough to save their fathers. Cordelia cannot even save herself.
Experiments in Criticism 