A tragedy has many components almost all of which are present in King Lear. There is a protagonist, Lear, that you can relate to on some level, since all he wants is the love of his daughters and to be able to retire to a life of peace. Lear has a tragic flaw however in that he is too trusting of his daughters and that he at one point goes quite insane. His doling out of his empire to his three daughters is a horrible idea but he could not have foreseen the consequences. How was he supposed to know that two of his daughters would turn on him and conspire to kill him and that he would end up banishing the only daughter that truly loved him? This did however occur and it led to his tragic downfall. from the moment that he split up his kingdom to his two daughters they began to plot against him and therefore he indirectly, by giving the kingdom to Regan and Goneril, led to the loss of his sanity and eventually, his own death.
There was another parallel tragedy inside of this already tragic story. The story of Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar the legitimate one and Edmund the illegitimate one was a tragedy in itself. The fact that Gloucester and the rest of the noble class believed that it was Edgar that wanted to kill his father instead of Edmund who actually wished the demise of his half-father was as tragic as it was ironic. Gloucester Banished Edgar and sent out a warrant for his arrest even though it was Edmund that wanted to kill him. Edgar, the son whose head Gloucester had put put a warrant for ended up saving his life more than once, caring for him after his eyes were gouged out by Cornwall as well as keeping him from committing suicide by jumping off the cliff. Gloucester's story was tragic to the bitter end when his heart finally broke from being overwhelmed by the fact that it was in fact Edgar who was taking care of him and that Edmund actually wanted him dead.
This play was also tragic just in the fact that such a vast majority of the characters died at the end of the play. Not only did they die but many of them died from things such as broken hearts or by committing suicide, or even attempting to commit suicide and then later dying from a heart that couldn't handle all the grief of life in the case of Gloucester. It was a prime example of a tragedy and there really isn't any way it could have been more tragic unless the few main characters that remained at the end of the play had also died.
