The progressiveness of Shakespeare’s body of work has long been disputed. From the implied anti-semitism of The Merchant of Venice to the questionable feminism of The Taming of the Shrew, much of his work has not so much pushed the social boundaries of his time as played along with it. King Lear, which stands among the greatest of his tragedies, falls prey to the common sense of the Elizabethan age as well, espousing some contentious views of powerful women as well as of illegitimate children, but in one aspect, intentionally or not, it finds itself very much ahead of its time. The depiction of mental illness within the play, specifically those in the vein of dementia and Alzheimer’s, stands out not only as much more understanding of such afflictions and the afflicted than was standard for the time, but also in its application on Lear, an overall very sympathetic character whose role as the ailing individual challenged a fundamental Christian belief that pain is the lot of the wicked alone, and suffering divine retribution for sin. The play presents an allegory for mental illness, through which it reveals a fundamental truth of the human condition: that suffering does not distinguish between good and evil, and that divinity alone cannot account for the whole of human experience.