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This 5 page paper discusses the familial relationships in “King Lear,” with particular emphasis on Lear and his daughters. Bibliography lists 1 source.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_HVlerdau.rtf
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age and madness, and particularly heart-breaking in its treatment of the relationships among Lear and his daughters. This paper considers the familial relationships in the play. Discussion We will
concentrate on Lear and his three children, but its also interesting to note that there is another family, equally troubled: the Duke of Gloucester has two sons, Edgar and Edmund.
Edgar is legitimate and Edmund is a bastard, but Gloucester treats them both well. In fact, it can be argued that he is actually fonder of Edmund than Edgar, possibly
because he represents a moment in Gloucesters life that he recalls with great fondness: "there was good sport at his making" (I.i.23). Despite this, Edmund is bitterly resentful of the
circumstances of his birth and schemes to gain power. He is a direct contrast to Edgar, who is decent and honorable. Thus, we have two brothers who are exact opposites
in spite of their fathers devotion to them. The relationships among Lear and his daughters are more complex because they change over the course of the play. Or perhaps its
better to say that Goneril and Regan actually reveal their real motivations, which are quite different from the personas they assume in the first act. The play opens with Lear
deciding to divide his kingdom among his daughters. He is getting old and no longer wants the responsibility of governing, and so he makes his disastrous decision. Lear is a
king, and at the time he ruled (and at the time Shakespeare wrote), kings were considered to be rulers by "divine right." That is, they were kings because it was
Gods will that they govern. For Lear to try and step aside was, in a sense, an act of blasphemy. Then too, he makes two other disastrous mistakes: he doesnt
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