Sweet Lies - Bitter Truths
How much loyalty does one owe a parent? They create you, raise you, and provide for you, so is it fair for them to expect a certain level of gratitude from you? Should one love their partner more than their parent? What’s an appropriate relationship between a parent and their child? In a royal family, loyalty can equal love but also material gain. This material gain can interrupt the fluidity of a parent-child relationship. King Lear relishes open displays of power. In order to achieve this he exerts emotional pressure on his daughters to publicly proclaim their love for him. His strategy backfires because he is unaware of the difference between what people say versus what they actually feel. Lear’s focus on this public declaration of love makes him blind the the true
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His lack of insight results in losing his one loyal daughter, Cordelia, and sets in motion the betrayal from his other two daughters, Goneril and Regan. Similarly, Gloucester’s obliviousness to Edmund, his bastard child’s, motives result in a false accusation that drives away his one loyal child, Edgar. Gloucester lacks attention for his bastard child, which makes Edmund resentful and create a plan that destroys the lives of his family members. Cordelia and Edgar are wronged by their loved ones, who misinterpret words and actions. On the other hand, the disloyal children take the opportunity to unlock material wealth at the expense of their fathers’ wellbeing. In Shakespeare’s King Lear, a child’s loyalty can be diminished by the possibility of material gain, yet Cordelia and Edgar remain true to their fathers in