Goneril In King Lear

The play begins with King Lear’s wish to divide his kingdom among his daughters as now he is too old to rule and in order to prevent future conflicts. Nevertheless, the division of King Lear’s Kingdom causes the very tragedy it intended to prevent. Coleridge’s approach to regard this plan as stupid even preposterous has drawn a lot of criticism. However, according to Harry Jaffa this is the methodology of a skilled leader. By setting the favored Cordelia between Goneril and Regan in the focal point of the kingdom and handing down to her the lion 's offer of the land and power, Lear diminishes the probability that his older daughters will be able either to assault each other or to participate allied against Cordelia and her spouse ( Jeffrey,

However, Stern (1990, as cited in Jeffrey, 1990) claims that even if King Lear’s plan would work this drama still would have the same tragic ending since Lear would be jealous that besides him there is another man in Cordelia’s life therefore he would run to Goneril, Goneril would use this as an opportunity to prepare a campaign with Regan against Cordelia and the events would happen as we already know them. He emphasizes that what Lear wants is maternal care and the fact that he could not find this kind of care is what leads him to his madness. It is The Fool who reproaches him for trying to make his daughters his mothers, and it the daughters who enrage him by not responding to his need. He commands Goneril “Let me not stay a jot for this dinner; go get it ready” and is flustered when she doesn’t smile at him: “How now, daughter? What makes that frontlet on? / You are too much of late i’ th’ frown!” and the way she and her retainers treat him make him doubt himself as a king: “This is not Lear. / Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes? They deny him the mother care, he asks nature to deny them the ability to have children, he implores nature to bring sterility into her womb and “dry up in her the organs of increase”. Receiving the same treatment from Regan he flees to the storm calling on the thunder to “strike flat the thick rotundity o’ th’ world! / Crack nature’s molds, all germains spill at once, / that makes ingrateful man”. At the point when his words lose the great power, when he has no adherent who might follow up on them, Lear escapes into the tempest and into lunacy. He finds care from maternal males the Fool, Kent, Gloucester who provide him with shelter, food, and warmth and calm before getting him to