*Couldn't work out how to write an introduction, was going to ask for help when I redraft.

Lear himself faces redemption throughout the play. His hubris is, in essence, his downfall, and he spends almost the entirety of the play suffering for his sins. His hubris eventually wearing down until he loses all pride and obsequiously relinquishes everything he has to his most treasured and valued daughter. Lear himself displays his own Hubris in how he feels about his own actions. He’s far too proud to admit his mistakes and accept his own pitfalls. He has a very blinkered view of what has happened to him, blindness being a strong metaphor in the play made real by the actual loss of Gloucester’s sight. Instead of seeing the wrong’s he has himself done, he instead sees only the wrongs done to him, and is full of self-pity. He describes himself as a man “more sinned against than sinning,” totally incapable of coming to terms with what he has done wrong. This, to an extent, stops the audience from developing too much pity for him. While they see the lows his daughters have sunk him to, they also see how he lead himself there. This leads to the audiences view of him as an anti-hero. A lot of parallels can be drawn between Lear’s crime and his punishment. Lear exiles his daughter, and his “unishment” is to be exiled by the daughters he has left. However, whereas Gonerill and Regan’s act is premeditated, Lear’s action was purely out of pride, not evil, and couldn’t necessarily be equated to what is daughters did to him. However, Lears failure to acknowledge his own mistakes is what leads to a lot of his suffering, and therefore his redemption, as throughout many of Shakespeare’s tragedies it seems like suffering is the only way for a tragic anti-hero, as fatally flawed as Lear, can achieve redemption.
Gloucester makes the tragic mistake of trusting his bastard son Edmund over his trustworthy son, Edgar. This leads to his downfall. He subsequently loses his home and his eyesight, and is forced to wander alone like a madman, contemplating suicide as he realises what he has done to his only loving son. While he suffers for his sins, he redeems himself through this suffering. The son he cast out is also his redemption, preventing him from committing suicide and staying with him until his last breaths. After his suffering, he is then redeemed and forgiven. It is as if, as with many other characters, he can only truly be redeemed in death.
Kent's character could be considered to be redeemed at the end. Throughout the play he shows an apparently selfless, devout love to his master. At the end of the day, he acknowledges Lears sufferings ancd calls for his death. He begs for the others to "vex not [Lears] ghost" and "let him pass" out of sympathy for his masters suffering, although it could also be considered to be a selfish wish to not go through the personal pain of watching his master's total loss of dignity. It is as if even death cannot Kents total reverence and obediance to his masters. He is, in parts of the play, reduced to speaking in prose with his master, a device Shakespeare uses to show conversation between what could be considered to be the lower classes. This shows how Lear is eventually brought down to a lower, servants level, due to his own pain and suffering. Kent, a "good" character, could be considered to be rewarded by, at the end of the play, being able to die and return to his masters side.
Throughout this play, the theme of redemption is clearly evident. Written during a time of devoutly christian england, we see the "good" rewarded, and the "bad" punished. It could be said that for many of the characters who've made tragic mistakes, pain and suffering is the only way to face redemption. It could even be linked to biblical terms, as Jesus suffers and dies for our sins, so many characters can only face redemption and retribution through death.