Explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents the characters Goneril Regan and Cordilia in "King Lear".

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KING LEAR COURSE WORK                                ROCCHINA MILIZIA

1ST DRAFT

Explore the ways in which Shakespeare presents the characters Goneril Regan and Cordilia in “King Lear”

Shakespeare’s presentation of Lear’s three daughters in the play “King Lear” is both interesting and highly effective.

Goneril and Regan are the two wicked sisters being both hypocritical and evil in their plot to gradually destroy their father.  Cordilia however is presented as the complete opposite proving to be honest and respectful and shows that she is the one that holds true love for her father.

        The play begins with Lear about to divide and give up to his daughters his kingdom.  Crucially Lear wishes to be told how much his daughters love him before he divests his rule, kingdom and cares of state.  ‘Tell me my daughters ……which of you shall we say doth love us most, that we, our largest bounty may extend’.  It is here that when we hear each daughters reply that we get the first insight into each complex character.  Goneril the eldest is to speak first, she replies ‘Sir, I love you more than words can wield the matter’.  Here we can see she professes to love her father more than any thing.  Foolishly Lear is at once gratified, obviously not knowing her true disposition, which Shakespeare has veiled effectively for her advantage.  Regan is then asked to which she replies much the same, describing herself as being ‘made of the same metal as my sister’, adding ‘I profess myself an enemy to all other joys.  Here we can see that Regan is just as hypocritical as Goneril, in professing to love her father beyond all other joys, knowing she will gain from making this proclamation.  In their fulsome speeches to Lear they both use the same metallic imagery, as though love were simply a commodity.  But next with quite the contrast we are presented with Lear’s third and youngest daughter Cordilia who demonstrates to be the complete opposite from Goneril and Regan.

Cordilia in an aside says ‘then poor Cordilia! And yet not so since, I am sure my love is more ponderous than my tongue’.  Evidently she truly loves her father greater than her ability to talk about it.  We see Shakespeare’s development of a true honest character in the way he presents Cordilia.  Also next when she explains that she ‘loves her majesty according to my bond’, but the man ‘whose hand must take my plight, shall carry half my love with him’.  This demonstrates Shakespeare’s ability to project forth Cordilia’s purity and respectfulness.  She is not ambitious and treacherous like her two sisters, and Shakespeare’s unbalanced equation of two evils and one good emphasizes this point dramatically.

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The unjust is brought upon the just as Lear disowns Cordilia and gives her nothing letting ‘her honesty be her dower’.

        With Cordilia safely out the way Goneril and Regan's true characters begin to shine forth.  When they are left alone, their realistic appraisal of Lear's character and their accusation that he is in his ‘dotage’ stands in stark contrast to the love which they have professed, demonstrating them for what they really are.  In this scene Shakespeare presents them at the start of their brutal plot, but as we later see they get progressively worse.

        Act 2 scene 2 ...

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