King Lear

Having just finished reading King Lear by William Shakespeare I can’t help but feel bad for the character Cordelia. In my mind, she was the nicest and most honest character throughout the play. In the beginning of the play she is out casted from her father and sisters because she won’t lavishly praise him. King Lear seems like an egotistical person who loves to hear people tell him what a great man he is. He gets power from this. If I were in Cordelia’s position my answer to his question probably would have paralleled hers. I can only imagine what it would have been like growing up in a household with an absent mother, having to be constantly surrounded by her pompous father, and harassed by her conniving sisters. When Cordelia refuses to give in to her father’s wishes she is finally standing up to him. She doesn’t answer his question how he wanted her to, but she still answers him truthfully. By saying that she has “nothing” more to say I believe she means that she has nothing more to offer, that she does indeed love her father as a daughter should, but she doesn’t go outside of her way to love all of his qualities.

At the end of the play Cordelia’s true loyalty is acted out. Even after being exiled from her father she still finds herself caring for his well-being.  She rushes to his side when he is weak and speaks to him in a loving way. Unlike her sisters, whose love for him is materialized and altered, Cordelia’s honest, daughterly love for him is what eventually brings him out of his spell of insanity.

I was saddened to learn that Cordeilia was murdered, even after all of the nice things she does for other people. I think Shakespeare wrote Cordelia in a way that makes the reader want to sympathize for her and morn her death.  She comes across as a gentle character whose only downfall in life is her family, which is tragic, because one cannot chose the surroundings that they are born into and the caregivers that will raise them. I found it admiring that although she grows up with a role model who is not the best, she still manages to find her own identity and voice. After her death her father is distraught by her passing, for thins is the first time that he realizes that in the end, having someone praise you through words, is different than having someone endear you through actions.