Edmund versus Edgar and the curious case of Cordelia

The characters of Edmund and Edgar play important roles in both the subplot and the main plot of ‘King Lear’, writes Sandra O’Donoghue

Gloucester’s sons are Edgar, the legitimate son and heir, and Edmund, his son conceived with a woman to whom he was not married. On Gloucester’s death, his title and lands will pass to Edgar. Edmund will receive nothing. And therein, as Shakespeare would put it, lies “the rub”, or the central problem that causes Edmund to betray both his father and brother so dreadfully.

It is certainly the case that Edmund’s words and actions are overwhelmingly evil and that Edgar’s innate goodness is an abiding feature of his character. It would be an oversimplification to see them as opposites. Because Shakespeare created complex characters for audiences to engage with, it is possible to see multiple characters in each of them. The depth and humanity with which he endows them – in this case Edmund and Edgar – makes them more realistic and relatable. Let’s have a quick look at the variety of character traits both of these figures display.

I have to confess a secret admiration for the character of Edmund. Everyone loves a bad boy, and what a bad boy Edmund truly is! His dastardly deeds and unbridled ambition make him a compelling character. His primary evil deed is the betrayal of his family. He dupes both his brother and father into thinking that they have been betrayed, one by the other. He achieves this through a Machiavellian understanding of what makes people tick, and he uses this understanding against them, “A credulous father and a brother noble, whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none”. His only reasons for doing this are greed and ambition – and the jealousy that results from being ill-born.

“Legitimate Edgar I must have your land.” Further evidence of Edmund’s malevolence is apparent when he leaves the scene of Gloucester’s blinding without uttering a word in his father’s defence. Cornwall tells him, “The revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding”, but Edmund just leaves without a word. Moreover, it is impossible to overlook his cruelty in pledging his allegiance to both sisters and then causing them to turn on each other, “To both these sisters have I sworn my love; each jealous of the other, as the stung are of the adder”. He also plots the murder of both Cordelia and King Lear. He shows no remorse for his actions until the very end, and even then, his is but a half-hearted attempt to save them. “Quickly send – be brief in it – to the castle, for my writ is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia.” It comes too late to save Cordelia and old Lear dies from grief.

Edgar is the blameless son. He was tricked by Edmund into believing that Gloucester seeks his death, which leads Edgar to a self-imposed exile as ‘Poor Tom’ on the heath. Edgar’s instinctive goodness is apparent in the fact that he doesn’t see any reason to disbelieve his brother. Thereafter, he spends time as “A bedlam beggar” living in total degradation, homeless on the heath. Despite this wretched experience, he seeks no revenge from his father. Instead, he attempts to take Gloucester on a journey in order to cure his despair, “Why I do trifle thus with his despair is done to cure it” This leads him to the camp at Dover where he faces his brother Edmund in battle and vanquishes him. However, he doesn’t seek to degrade Edmund and in fact comforts him by telling him, “Let’s exchange charity. I am no less in blood than thou art Edmund”. Finally, he is left as one of the only survivors of the tragedy and it is on his shoulders that the regeneration of the state lies, “Friends of my soul, you twain rule in this realm and the gored state sustain”.

Shakespeare also offers reasons to feel sympathy for Edmund. The audience cannot fail but sympathise with a man who is forced to listen to his father regale friends with stories of the circumstances of Edmund’s birth, his enjoyment of his mother and the fact that he’s a bastard, “Yet was his mother fair; there was good sport at his making”. He lives in the shadow of the legitimate son and heir; Edmund reaps a bitter harvest not of his own sowing. Starved for love, he seeks recognition and revenge. He comforts himself before dying with the thought that “Yet Edmund was beloved. The one the other poisoned for my sake, and after slew herself ”.

Conversely, we can also attach negatives to the goody-two-shoed Edgar. He is the gullible fool who falls for Edmund’s plan. He is also a coward; instead of facing his father and demanding to know the truth he prefers to run away onto the heath and hide. Finally, even after he finds out the truth from Gloucester, he makes an ill-informed decision to keep his identity secret from his father in an attempt to cure his melancholy. This effort does nothing but increase Gloucester’s despair. These are only a few examples that show how Shakespeare created Edgar and Edmund as complex characters. How you view them, as with all Shakespeare characters, is entirely up to you.

HIS DASTARDLY DEEDS AND UNBRIDLED AMBITION MAKEHIMA COMPELLING CHARACTER