A more specific version of the same questions – why do Goneril and Regan act as they do against their father? After all, they each get a third, then a half, of the kingdom.
Possibilities:
1. They’re not very nice
2. Power corrupts
3. Do they treat him badly? That’s how I treat my father….
None of these answers seems to me satisfactory – they don’t take into account the possibility of any responsibility on Lear’s part (I’ll get to this idea later).
Part of reading Act I, scene i is imagining what’s happening, and the stage directions are important, as attendants enter, one of whom carries a coronet. This is a small crown, usually the Queen’s, as distinguished from the King’s larger crown.
So, Lear, two married daughters and their husbands, Kent and Cordelia all enter the room in King Lear’s palace. But how is this significant? The situation implies the crown was meant for Cordelia. It seems as if Lear intends to make Cordelia his queen. But if this is true, it’s at least possible that something is unnatural in Lear’s attitude to Cordelia – in some ways the intended act is psychologically incestuous. He’ll put Cordelia in a position a wife should occupy, not a daughter. This is a strong charge against Lear, who, then, is not capable of a natural loving relationship of father/daughter, who wants, and psychologically demands, a husband-wife relationship.
Lear speaks of Cordelia’s dowry. France and Burgandy have been hanging about for a long time, awaiting her hand in marriage (“Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn”). Yet Lear keeps them off stage during this scene, when they should be getting the dowry. His intention, then, seems to be to reward Cordelia, to give her the Queen’s crown – he says later “I loved her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery.” So:
1. He’ll give Cordelia her dowry directly – it usually goes to the husband but they’re offstage (I’m here assuming that the division of the kingdom IS the dowries)
2. He wants to live with her
3. He loved her most
4. The prospective husbands have no part in all this.
It all points to a father unwilling to depart from his daughter, unwilling, perhaps, to let her marry – he wants to be in the place of her husband, and he tries to guarantee his place with her by rewarding her with the best part of the kingdom. In effect, he gives himself the dowry that ought to go with Cordelia's prospective husband. And if he’s successful in this “plan”, Cordelia as “queen” of England will not be able to marry either of the suitors who are after her – Burgandy and France. She could not move to Burgandy (part of France) nor France; she could not marry either man.
Lear’s opening speech – it must hinge on the meaning of darker purpose. He can’t refer to the division of the kingdom (Gloucester and Kent have just been talking about it, so it’s no “dark” secret), nor the dowries (the division itself is the dowries). Perhaps the darker purpose is dark even to himself? I’ve suggested how it’s dark with respect to Cordelia. And their speeches indicate something of this sort as well. When Cordelia finally speaks, it’s this:
Good my lord,
You have begot me, bred me, lov'd me; I
Return those duties back as are right fit,
Obey you, love you, and most honour you.
Why have my sisters husbands, if they say
They love you all? Haply, when I shall wed,
That lord whose hand must take my plight shall carry
Half my love with him, half my care and duty.
Sure I shall never marry like my sisters,
To love my father all. (I, i)
The speech has a couple of purposes. It is a literary criticism of the speeches of her sisters. Connected with this is clearly the question of the proper way of looking at husband-wife, father-daughter relationships. Cordelia says that Goneril and Regan have been false – that the bond they say they owe to Lear they really owe to their husbands. It is important that this is the language (that is, the speeches of Goneril and Regan) that Lear wants to hear, where daughters conceive of their relationship with their father as they should conceive of their relationship with their husbands.
But looking at Cordelia’s speech more closely, I think you see that, while she can recognize the issue in her sisters’ speeches, she does not see that it’s there in her own. She uses the language of the marriage ceremony to describe her relationship with her father (“obey”, “love” and “most honour”) – and says that her relationship with her husband will be exactly the same – husband and father will share equally – that lord shall take “half my love with him, half my care and duty.” (For the sake of a normative comparison, see Desdemona’s speech to her father, Brabantio, about choosing her husband over her father.)
Look at some of the language used to describe Lear’s actions: Kent calls it “hideous rashness” and a “foul disease”. France says to Lear that “Your fore-vouched affection / [Has fallen] into taint….” The language describes the kind of relationship I’ve been pointing to. I think, then, that I do understand Lear’s darker purpose.
4 comments:
I think the main reason for the two daughters are speaking and acting so unkindly to their father is because they are treated unfairly compared to their sister, Cordelia. It has been obvious, to Gonoril and Regan, and ofcourse the readers, that Cordelia is Lear's favorite daughter.
Overall it's King Lear's mistake to be treating Cordelia better than the other two, this story has ended tragically because of his own mistake. Also at first I don't think he realizes his own mistake because many people have warned him and pointed out the mistake he is making. In Act 1 Scene 1, Kent says "When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state, And in thy best consideration check This hideous rashness." This shows that Kent had seen the whole situation and had warned King Lear that he is unreasonable with his decision. However Lear doens't listen and tells Kent to stop talking to him. The reason of this tragedy of King Lear comes back to King Lear himself, and he is the one who caused all this chaos.
There are a lot of things that occur in the first act and scene of King Lear and it all happens so quickly that it is hard to pick out the essential and crucial components underlying King Lear. Of course it is evident that King Lear is dividing his kingdom between his three daughters and he favors Cordelia the most but his "darker purpose" is not recognizable when first reading Act 1, Scene 1. In fact, I did not even recognize that there was a darker purpose until we discussed it in class. It is astonishing how Shakespeare can subtly put in certain words and phrases that can make a huge impact on the overall meaning of the scene or story. For example, Shakespeare includes words that are often used in wedding ceremonies in Cordelia's speech to her father; this is hard to spot when first read upon, but when closely looked at it, Cordelia's speech indeed does hold the words “obey”, “love” and “most honour” in her speech.
After our discussion in class, my thoughts on King Lear’s intentions with Cordelia have greatly changed. I do find it quite odd that Burgundy and France are BOTH sent out of the room while the division of the kingdom is occurring because both Goneril and Regan’s husbands are there while they are given, or what seem to be, their dowries. In my copy of King Lear the book fails to mention that a coronet is brought in; this is extremely crucial in the analysis of King Lear. It is pretty clear that the coronet is for Cordelia; she is, after all, Lear’s most favored daughter. It seems that King Lear did have the intention to “marry” his daughter Cordelia which is his darker purpose; therefore his relationship with his daughters is questionable. Goneril and Regan, after all, treat their father badly, but this could be the result out of his own mistreatment and neglect of his daughters. He did not give them a dowry when they were wed and he clearly favors Cordelia the most; favoring one daughter often sparks jealousy. Goneril and Regan probably felt that they fell short of Lear’s love; this is, after all, a common theme in this book – fathers not showing their affection for their children. This is seen in both Lear’s relationship with his daughters and Gloucester and his sons; evidently, relationships between parents and their children is a very important theme in this book. Much of the hardships in “King Lear” are based around the downfalls in the relationships between parents and children. Much like Goneril and Regan, Edmund feels that he falls short of his father’s love. Gloucester refers to Edmund as “bastard” and has been away from his father for much of his life as seen when Gloucester says, “he hath been out nine years, and away he shall again” (Act 1, Scene 1). Therefore, it seems to me that the mistreatment of fathers in King Lear is due to the poor parent-child relationship between the characters.
Cordelia's speech to her father is very disturbing if we analyze it closely. The fact that there is no mother in this book like many Shakespearean book such as Othello is very ironic because Cordelia, the daughter, is trying to take the place of her mother. She thinks that she has to "obey [him], love [him], and honour [him]" (I,i) like his wife. The speech from Cordelia is very sentimental and touching but Cordelia unintentionally believes that she has to act like Lear's wife. This gives a sense of incest between the father and the daughter in the story. Lear also treasures Cordelia the most out of his three daughters and expects Cordelia to act like a "kind nursery" (I,i) when he abdicates. This inappropriate love between Lear and Cordelia can be shown because Lear saved all his daughters' dowries until Cordelia's marriage although both of her older sisters were already wedded.
When Cordelia does not play in his love "game", Lear reacts in rage and banishes Cordelia who is supposed to be as precious as his wife. Kent, who also "honor[s], and love[s]" (I,i) King Lear like a father, tries to persuade Lear to stop his madness. However, Lear continues to be stubborn and advances with his "darker purpose". It can be inferred that not only the dividing the land or the dowries were the "darker purpose" but possibly the banishment of Cordelia was the part of the plan.
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