Edmund’s language is alive, full of questions, playing with the ideas of bastardy/base and ‘legitimate’. There is an enormous scorn for anything inactive – ‘the plague of custom’, the ‘dull stale tired bed’ and the ‘tribe of fops’, and the conclusion is full of active verbs – “I grow” “I prosper”
There is a link between the language Shakespeare has used and the characters actions. Edmund is an evil, active, scheming and cunning; his language he used is at times sarcastic, dark, active verbs are used quite often. When Edmund is in his soliloquy he is loud, alive, calling to the Gods, his character also despises people like Edgar, because of his legitimacy; all this is also shown in his language.
Edmund brandishes a forged letter designed to dispossess Edgar and secure his position fore himself. Edmund allows Gloucester an ‘accidental’ sight of the letter and succeeds in arousing his suspicions. Edmund’s flaunting of the letter and his determination to ‘top th’legitimate’ evoke our antipathy, but perhaps also a certain fascination at such flagrant self-will.
Edmund's soliloquy at the opening of 1.2 repays close scrutiny, because it indicates his basic attitude to life. For him the idea of "Nature" signifies a world without legitimacy. One is entitled to whatever one can gain by one's wits. He relishes the notion of being a bastard because that is the most obvious manifestation of his commitment to denying traditions. For him, as for Regan and Goneril, there is no standard of virtue, which determines the value of one's life. People are what they are, and that is simply a compound of desires and talents to seize opportunities. The prose soliloquy at the end of the scene brings this point out very explicitly:
‘As if we were villains by necessity; fools by heavenly compulsion; knaves, thieves, and treachers, by spherical predominance; drunkards, liars, and adulterers, by an enforced obedience of planetary influence; and all that we are evil in, by a divine thrusting on.’
This prose soliloquy indicates Edmund's sense of the total absence of a controlling metaphysical or moral component to human life. Human beings are what they are--and, in Edmund's view, they are anything but admirable, simply one more greedy animal with a "goatish disposition." That being the case, his task, as he sees it, is to create for himself out of the materials at hand his own life to suit his individualistic desires.
And it's important to note that Edmund does not have his eye fixed on any final goal. He wants to stir things up so that he can improvise his way to a better position, which for him means attain more power and prestige. As he says, "Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit;/ All with me's meet that I can fashion fit". He has no particular desire to injure his father or his brother; he just wants them out of his way, so he can be what he wants to be. His later complicity in the torturing of his father is a logical extension of this attitude to life, not part of his original desire to mutilate Gloucester. But his willingness to betray his father indicates just how much he sees other people merely as instruments to be manipulated to his own ends.
Edmund claims that the letter is written by Edgar; the letter complains that the young are denied their inheritance for too long, and suggests that Edgar and Edmund should meet to discuss this. Gloucester takes the bait and curses Edgar, whom Edmund pretends to defend, suggesting an arranged test of his loyalty. We see the transition to prose for the conversational exchanges – and Edmund’s masterly pose as the respectful son. His performance with the letter is compelling; allowing a brief sight to arouse curiosity, feigning unwillingness to reveal the contents while hinting at their sinisterness, and pretending to defend Edgar, yet blackening his name.
The letter focuses upon a central theme; the transfer of power and wealth from the old to the young. It is re-emphasised in Edgar’s alleged view that ‘sons at perfect age, and fathers declined, the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue’. The views, of course, are Edmund’s, and will find a harsh echo in the mouths of Goneril and Regan.
After the exit of Gloucester, Edmund’s philosophy is again projected in his scathing dismissal of his father’s beliefs. For him, the stars have no significance; man is what he makes himself, no more, no less. This adds point to his cynical aping of his father after the entry of Edgar. He gives such emphasis to his mock of solemnity by the thudding alliteration on ‘d’: ‘death’, ‘dearth’, ‘dissolutions’, ‘divisions’, ‘diffidences’, ‘dissipation’. This litany of disruption is precisely what Edmund aspires to achieve.
Edgar’s character is established by his affectionate greeting of Edmund, who sets about manipulating him as he did his father. Edmund rounds off the scene with the same vaunting cynicism as he began, reverting to verse and concluding with an emphatic couplet. He exults in his disdain for those closest to him – ‘a credulous father and a brother noble’ – and derides Edgar’s ‘foolish honesty’. Ideas are spurned as he proclaims his doctrine of the end justifying the means: ‘All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit’. Here is a man indubitably evil, ruthlessly selfish and deceitful.
We next see Edmund in Act II scene I, when it is night at Gloucester’s castle. Edmund hears that Regan and Cornwall are due to arrive and that war is likely between Cornwall and Albany. Edmund determines to turn this to his advantage. He warns Edgar that his refuge has been discovered and questions him about the alleged involvement in the quarrels between Cornwall and Albany. Edgar is hounded into flight. Before the arrival of Gloucester, Edmund wounds himself and then convinces the old man that he was hurt by Edgar when he refused to join in a plot against him. Gloucester pledges for Edgar and promised Edmund he will inherit in his place.
Edmund displays fullness of his wicked talents here, weaving unexpected developments into his plans and acting without hesitation. We witness another superlative performance as he packs his bemused brother from the stage. The turbulent sentence structure in Edmund’s speech: Intelligence is given where you are hid; you have now the good advantage of the night; have you not spoken’gainst the Duke of Cornwall? He’s coming hither, now, i’th’night, i’th’haste, And Regan with him; have you nothing said Upon his party’gainst the Duke of Albany?
Questions, statements, warnings, and commands swamp Edgar. He manages only one sentence of protestation: I am sure on’t, not a word.
Edmund’s determination is well evidenced in his drawing of his own blood. The supreme hypocrisy of his describing Edgar’s alleged purpose as ‘unnatural’ and how he claims to have defended the very links, which he defiles. Again the love and trust between a father and a dutiful child are soured.
In Act III Scene iii, Gloucester reveals to Edmund his distress at the cruelty of Goneril, Regan and Cornwall. He is disturbed at their command that he, the master of the house, should not comfort the King. Gloucester’s determination to serve Lear is balanced by Edmund’s determination to serve himself; we can observe the dreadful irony of the anxious father beseeching the vile son to look after himself. The theme of age thrust out by youth is encapsulated in Edmund’s laconic observation: ‘the younger rises when the old doth fall’
Edmund plays off Goneril and Regan to his advantage; and they two sisters love him passionately, his handsomeness and his evilness. Edmund turns to the audience with another of his flagrant addresses, his difference to Goneril and Regan is made clear. To him they are simply ‘these sisters’, pawns in his power game. In an accurate evaluation hinging on the image of the adder, he captures all of their slyness and capacity for inflicting pain. ‘Which of them shall I take?’ embodies his mechanical view; it is merely a matter of weighing tactical merits and demerits. He can view his Machiavellian view of Albany – useful for the battle, but thereafter: ‘Let her who would be rid of him devise His speedy taking off.’
The action of this play is generated by the evil characters. The audience could get the impression from the stage of a world full of active, alive evil whereas ‘good’ mean suffering and is passive.
Evil can be attractive, as in the character of Edmund; his frankness to himself as well as to the audience about his motives, his sardonic humour, his independence of mind and contempt for superstition all make him appealing to the audience.
Edmund’s dying repentance somehow lacks conviction and serves instead to give impetus to the plays final action. Although Edmund’s role as villain is central to the action of the play, the success of his plotting is not due to psychological manipulation, but rather due to the weakness of character in those around him.
Edmund is resolute through to the dual with Edward, after which Edmund begins to see his fortune fall, lamenting ``The wheel is come full circle! I am here''. Edmund feels not genuine sorrow, but self-pity, bemoaning his lost social status: ``Yet Edmund was beloved.'' As in the past, Edmund is a syncophant, carrying out the acts he feels may redeem his reputation even in his death. after which Edmund begins to see his fortune fall, lamenting. The illusion of suddenly emergent `moral consciousness' in Edmund's last act would agree with his habitual feigning of innocence and maintained illusion of `virtue and obedience'. That Edmund would end his days with a compassionate thought is simply not believable. Any sympathy the reader may feel for Edmund at this point is likely due to the original justness in his cause (that he should not be treated as a lessor for being a bastard) and his capable management of his own fate. The reader comes to deplore Edmund's means, but, hoping for a redemption of Edmund and grasping for a positive message from the play, the reader sees compassion in Edmund's final words, compassion that likely does not exist.
Of all of the play’s villains, is the most complex and sympathetic. He is a consummate schemer, a Machiavellian character eager to seize any opportunity and willing to do anything to achieve his goals. However, his ambition is interesting insofar as it reflects not only a thirst for land and power but also a desire for the recognition denied to him by his status as a bastard. His serial treachery is not merely self-interested; it is a conscious rebellion against the social order that has denied him the same status as ’s legitimate son, . He is the ultimate self-made man, and he is such a cold and capable villain that it is entertaining to watch him work. Only at the close of the play does Edmund show a flicker of weakness. Mortally wounded, he sees that both and have died for him, and whispers, “Yet Edmund was beloved”. After this ambiguous statement, he seems to repent of his villainy and admits to having ordered ’s death. His peculiar change of heart (rare among Shakespearean villains) is enough to make the audience wonder, amid the carnage, whether Edmund’s villainy sprang not from some innate cruelty but simply from a thwarted, misdirected desire for the familial love that he witnessed around him.