King Lear Family Quotes Page 2

In this passage, Shakespeare reveals Edmund's motives for trying to destroy his father, Gloucester, and his brother, Edgar. Edmund has been mistreated and labeled a "base" "bastard" for two reasons: 1) he's an illegitimate child, the product of Gloucester's affair with an unmarried woman; 2) Edmund is not an eldest son (Edgar was born first). In Shakespeare's day, primogeniture (the system by which eldest sons inherit all their fathers' wealth, titles, lands, power, debt, etc.) was the rule. Edmund is not only seen as a lesser being than his older half-brother, Edgar, he also stands to inherit nothing from his father. But, Edmund objects to the way society views him as insignificant and insists that he's just as noble and well-composed as his brother, Edgar. It is here that Edmund resolves to go after Edgar's "land" as he composes a scheme for revenge.

Here, King Lear demands to know which one of his daughters loves him "most" before he announces the division of his kingdom. When Lear asks "which of you shall we say doth love us the most?" he's operating under the assumption that 1) love is quantifiable and 2) that language is capable of expressing his daughters' love. Check out "Language and Communication" for more on this.

Cordelia, as we know, refuses to play King Lear's game of "who loves daddy the most." Here, she says that she loves her father "according to [her] bond," which means that she loves him just as much a daughter should love her father, "no more nor less." It turns out that Cordelia is about to be married and insists that she reserves half her love for her future husband and half for her father. She also points out that her sisters, Goneril and Regan, dishonor their husbands when they claim to love their father more than their spouses. Is this the reason Lear flips out and banishes Cordelia, depriving her of a dowry? Is Lear jealous of Cordelia's future husband?