King Lear

What Creates Man's World View?

One of the questions I’ve had throughout Lear has been “Why do Goneril and Reagan so quickly turn against Lear?” At the opening of the play it appears that they should be utterly grateful – not only has Lear granted them their wildest desires – immediate shares in Lear’s kingdom and it turn his fortune – but in his rash decision against Cordelia both sisters receive an extra portion than what Lear originally intends. And despite the difficulties of housing Lear and his rowdy one hundred knights, this dispute does not seem grounds for his daughters to disown, deface, and eventually bring death to Lear.

To answer this question, I think we need to take a look at the way the two sisters view the world, and in turn where this view comes from. In the same scene that Goneril and Regan receive their portions of the kingdom, Shakespeare reveals an important truth about Lear. Lear’s question to his daughters is not “Do you love me?” or “Why do you love me?” but instead is “How much do you love me?”. This exposes how Lear quantifies love – he doesn’t recognize affection and immeasurable emotion, and indeed punishes Cordelia, his only faithful daughter, for her inability to “heave her heart into her mouth”. Lear’s daughters receive their inheritance not out of merit but on flattery; more kind words in Lear’s mind is the same as more love, and he eagerly tries to attain both of these things.

This same view of the world – and the quantification of love – appears to be echoed by Regan and Goneril. The two daughters are happy to please Lear while he has power, and something to offer them – Lear’s gifts of land are the ultimate act of love in their eyes. Once Lear relinquishes this power, he loses his ability to show his daughters love in a way that they eagerly recognize. It is no longer important to the two sisters that Lear is their father; his lack of land and influence appear to be a lack of love. This point of view, when combined with the nuisance Lear and his knights are to his daughters, combine to change their opinion of Lear in terrible ways.

This quantified view of the world continues throughout the play in nearly every act the sisters undertake – be it their dismissal of Lear’s entourage, the accusations of treachery that finds Gloucester, or the two sister’s battle over the affections of Edmund the Bastard – each action the sisters undertake is an attempt to solidify their power and bring them quantifiable success and greatness.

It is this terrible mode of conduct that Shakespeare writes against – the greed, the lust, and the quantification of love these sisters (and even Lear) depict are dangerous, and cause disorder not only in the family but in the world, a theme dominantly established in Lear, and an outcome feared by Shakespeare and all others of the Elizabethan worldview.  

This picture in my mind sums up the actions of Lear's daughters -- just as the man in this picture appears to be swallowed up and drowned in his money, Goneril and Reagan set themselves on a path towards their ultimate destruction, a destrcuction not caused by outside forces but instead caused directly by their greedy actions. The sister's usurpation of their father, destruciton of their friends and family, and the downfall of their kingdom all can be traced back to their greed and their quantification of love.