KING LEAR

King Lear is the most complicated of all Shakespeare’s plays. There are two plots — the main one concerning the King and his three daughters; and the sub-plot of Gloucester and his two sons. The plots are intricately interwoven with each other, as the characters from Gloucester’s sub-plot become involved with those in the King’s main action. At the end of the play, the two plots are finally resolved together.

King Lear has planned to divide his kingdom between his three daughters, but when the youngest, Cordelia, incurs his displeasure he casts her off and gives her share of the land to her sisters — on whom he soon becomes totally dependent. They are greedy and selfish, and eventually dispossess their father entirely. They turn him out of doors into a wild and stormy night with only his Fool and a devoted servant, Kent, as companions. But Gloucester follows them, and leads the King to find shelter in a deserted "hovel".

Gloucester has griefs of his own: early in the play we saw how his younger son, Edmond, deceived him into thinking that Edgar, his elder son, was plotting against his father’s life. A search warrant was issued against Edgar who, to avoid arrest, disguised himself as "Poor Tom", a crazy beggar. He, too, has taken refuge from the storm, and in the "hovel" the King and the Fool encounter the madman.

Gloucester’s other son, meanwhile, has been worming his way into the favour of King Lear’s elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, and their husbands, the Dukes of Albany and Cornwall. These are now rulers of the kingdom — and Edmond is ambitious! He betrays his father by revealing the help that Gloucester has given to the outcast Lear, and he is rewarded for this with the title "Earl of Gloucester", which has been stripped from his father.

The Dukes of Albany and Cornwall begin to quarrel, each wanting the other’s share of Lear’s kingdom. They unite only to face a threatened invasion from France — whose troops are led by Lear’s youngest daughter. Cordelia is now married to the King of France, and she is coming to rescue her father and restore him to his throne.

But by this time Lear’s sufferings have driven him mad. He is led to a place of safety by the old Earl of Gloucester, and for some time withdraws from the action. Gloucester, however, is arrested and charged, on the evidence of his son, with aiding and abetting a known traitor — King Lear. The Duke of Cornwall tears out Gloucester’s eyes, and the blind old man, expelled from his castle, is put into the care of "Poor Tom" — who is actually, of course, the loving son (i.e. Edgar) whom Gloucester had once rejected and outlawed. Edgar leads his father towards Dover, where he plans to take his own life. Cornwall dies, wounded by one of his own servants who was outraged by his cruelty.

Lear’s elder daughters have both fallen in love with Edmond, and are jealous of each other. Regan is now a widow, and Goneril has begun to despise her husband, Albany, who is horrified by the way that the two sisters have treated their father. Cordelia arrives in England and finds her father. She asks for the Doctor’s help to cure his madness, and prepares to do battle with the armies of her sisters.

Edgar leads his father in the direction of Dover, but frustrates his suicide attempt; he then saves his father’s life for a second time when Goneril’s messenger, Oswald, carrying a letter from Goneril to Edmond, recognises Gloucester and tries to kill him. Edgar kills Oswald, and reads the letter he is carrying. From this, Edgar learns that Goneril wants Edmond to kill her husband so that she and Edmond can be married. Edgar gives the letter to Albany.

Lear recovers from his madness sufficiently to recognise Cordelia, but their joy at their reunion is shortlived. The battle is fought between the invading French forces (who are fighting for the rights of Cordelia and her father) and the English armies, defending the kingdom of Goneril and Regan. The French army is defeated; Cordelia and Lear are taken to prison. Edmond arranges for Cordelia to be murdered.

Albany denounces Edmond, and Edgar (in another disguise) challenges his brother to a duel. Edmond is fatally wounded, but before he dies he learns of his father’s death and of the deaths of Goneril and Regan (Goneril poisoned her sister, and then stabbed herself). Edmond makes a last-minute attempt to save Cordelia’s life, but it is too late: she was hanged on the instructions he had given earlier. Lear carries in the body of his youngest daughter. His grief is extreme, and shortly he is dead too. Albany yields the kingdom to Edgar, who has the last words of the play.

His daughters

Goneril, the eldest, is glib of tongue and satisfies her father’s demands for flattery until she has secured her desires. Then she shows herself to be cold, heartless, and selfish.She scorns her husband, and her passion for Edmond leads her to plot Albany’s death, to poison her sister Regan, and — when her lust is finally frustrated — to kill herself.

Regan is very much like her older sister. She can command the same oily flattery when it suits her purpose, and she is no less heartless and selfish when her real nature is revealed. In lust and jealousy she is her sister’s equal, and it may be argued which of the two is capable of the greater cruelty.

Cordelia, Lear’s youngest and favourite daughter, has nothing in common with Goneril and Regan. She staunchly refuses to flatter her father, preferring rather to bear his displeasure than to emulate her sisters’ empty boasts. Throughout the central part of the play she is away in France, returning at the end of Act 4 to rescue the King from his persecutors.

Their husbands

Albany is married to Goneril. At first he seems a mild- mannered husband, who dares do no more than remonstrate with his wife about her callous indifference to her father’s sufferings. But when he realises the full monstrosity of the two sisters in their dealings with both Lear and Gloucester — and when he understands the threat to his own life — he is moved to action.

Cornwall, Regan’s husband, is a brute. It is he who is responsible for putting Kent in the stocks in Act 2, Scene 2, and for locking the castle gates so that Lear is left to the mercy of the storm. His great scene is the one (Act 3, Scene 7) where, with evident relish, he tears out the eyes of the helpless Gloucester.

The King of France chooses to marry Cordelia after she has been disinherited by her father and rejected by her other suitor. France’s part in the play is finished at the end of the first scene, when he takes his bride back to his own country. We hear of his anger, and we know about his threat to invade Britain, but it is Cordelia who leads his army and employs it to rescue her father.

Gloucester    On his first appearance he seems a sophisticated, urbane character, laughing about his illegitimate son, Edmond. He is, however, superstitious and easily deceived by Edmond into rejecting Edgar, his legitimate son. Gloucester is too weak to stand against Cornwall (who is his overlord), but at last he finds courage to go to the aid of the King. But he is forced to pay a heavy penalty for all his mistakes.

His sons

Edgar, the elder of the two, develops in character and stature as the play progresses. He is slandered by his brother and outlawed by his father. To escape detection, he disguises himself as a "Bedlam beggar" — one of the lunatics who had licence to beg throughout the country. He gives a splendid performance as "Poor Tom", imitating the cries and fantastic behaviour of a madman (learned out of Harsnett’s Declaration of Egregious Popishe Impostures). In this persona he encounters his blind father and the mad old King, and at the end of the play he is able to offer some relief to both. He grows wiser and more self-confident through his exposure to suffering, and he emerges from his experiences with a new strength.

Edmond is wilful and ruthless. Perhaps his life has been warped by his illegitimacy, making him determined to be revenged on the society which casts a stigma on his birth. He is clever, intelligent, and attractive — able to draw the loves of two sisters with his sexual magnetism, and to charm an audience with his sardonic wit.

Kent The Earl of Kent is King Lear’s most steadfast supporter. Banished by Lear for his boldness in daring to reprove the King’s behaviour, he nevertheless returns to serve his master in disguise, calling himself "Caius". He retains his former outspokenness, however, although it gets him into still more trouble. Kent does valuable service to the King (and to the play!) by keeping in touch with Cordelia, to whom he is devoted. But right to the end Kent is something of a mystery man, seeming to be in the service of a greater master than Lear.