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King Lear is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare in the sass’s. It is a play about King Lear and his three daughters. Many characters in this play encounter suffering all throughout; including Cornelia, Edgar, and King Lear. Although King Lear brought the suffering on himself, Cornelia and Edgar did not. Cornelia, Learns youngest daughter is a prime example of moral strength, the same can be said about Edgar, the legitimate son of Gloucester. The first act of the play deals with King Lear wanting to divide up his kingdom for his three daughters: Generic, Reagan, and Cornelia.
He then proceeds to ask his gathers how much they love him, it’s used as a way to help him divide the land. Generic says that she loves her father more than words, and Reagan outdid her. Reagan said she loves her more than Generic, “And find I am alone felicitate, in your highness’ love” (1. 1 . 75-6). When it comes to Cornelia, the daughter Lear loves the most, she says nothing. She loves him like a daughter should love a father; but nothing to her sister’s flamboyant extent. So young, my lord, and true” (1. 1 . 108). She knew she would get ostracizes from her father, cut out of the will, and sent on her way: but she stayed steadfast and honest. After being banished from the Kingdom, Cornelia goes to say goodbye to her sisters who are less than polite. Instead of dropping down to her sister’s level, she says her farewell and leave them with this, “Time shall unfold what pleated cunning hides: Who cover faults, at last shame them derides. Well may you prosper! ” (1. 2. 282-4).
We meet Cornelia again in act four scene four at Dover, even though her dad banished her she came to him when he was sick, she prayed for him and asked doctors for any types of help for his madness. “Repair those violent harms that my two sisters/ have in thy reverence made! ” (4. . 28-9). Aside from Cornelia who died later a noble moral daughter, we have Edgar the son of Gloucester. We are first introduced to Edgar in the earl of Gloucester house in act one, scene two. Edgar is the legitimate son of Gloucester, while his brother Edmund was born out of wedlock.
Gloucester was not going to include Edmund into his will, or his shares of land. Edgar however wrote a letter to Edmund saying how it was wrong and that they needed to share his father’s wealth, “you should enjoy half his revenue for ever, and live/ the beloved of your brother, Edgar” (1. 2. 53-4). Although Edgar is being onset and wants to help Edmund, Edmund has a different plan. Edmund plots against Edgar and his father to get lands. That he suspects none; on whose foolish honesty my practices ride easy! I see the business.
Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit: All with me’s meet that I can fashion fit. ” (1. 2. 177-80) Edgar left the city, he has been completely innocent throughout the whole play, yet his father feels betrayed by him. “l heard myself proclaimed/ and by the happy hollow of a tree/ escaped the hunt” (2. 3. 1-3). He later returns as Poor Tom. “Poor Turgidly! Poor Tom! ‘ That’s something yet! Edgar I nothing am” (2. 3. 20-1). In vying her the slightest piece of land, is an excellent example of how much of an honorable character she is. She leaves with her head held high.
Problems arise between Generic and Reagan, the oldest daughters of Lear and Cordillera’s sisters. Generic and Reagan attempt to overthrow their father’s kingship by locking him out in the middle of a rigorously ferocious storm that could have killed him on its own. It was Cornelia who came back to her father took him in and got him help, in the end Cornelia was hung and her father avenged her death before his life ended. The King and his daughter’s lives compare very much to Gloucester and his sons. They have the honest children, Cornelia and Edgar.
They also have children who are vengeful and corrupt: Generic, Reagan, and Edmund. After all the deaths in the play from Cornwall, Edmund, Cornelia, Generic, Reagan, and Lear, Edgar gets the Kingdom. Edgar tried to share the kingdom with Kent, and Ken’s reaction was that he could not accept it, he has a higher power he has to attend to. “The weight of this sad time we must obey; Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say. The oldest hath born most; we that are young Shall never see so much, nor live so long. ” (5. 3. 323-6)