Character Analysis In King Lear Essay, Research Paper

Cordelia The virtuous daughter whom King Lear mistakenly rejects . knowing she will marry , Cordelia refuses to assert that all of her love will forever go to her father , unlike Regan and Goneril, her hypocritical sisters . Lear mistakes Cordelia’s honesty for a lack of affection and disinherits her , though the king of France recognizes her innate worth and marries her anyway . She leaves Britain with him at the end of 1.1 and does not reappear until Act 4 , when she arrives with an army . She intends to restore her father to his throne , for he has been humiliated and banished to the wilderness by Regan and Goneril . Lear and Cordelia are reunited, but are nonetheless

defeated in battle , and the villainous Edmund imprisons them and orders their murder , in 5.3. Although Edmund is defeated by Edgar it is too late ; the assassin killed Cordelia , though Lear kills him . In the play’s final episode Lear grieves over his daughter’s corpse and dies of a broken heart. During her long absence from the play we are not permitted to forget Cordelia , for her goodness and self-sacrifice are central to the tragedy : the Fool is said to have ‘ much pined away ‘ for her , in 1.4 ; in 2.2 , the loyal Kent reveals that she knows of Lear’s situation ; Lear himself refers to her in 2.4 ; and her invasion force is mentioned several times , beginning in 3.1 .