Understanding Cordelia
Conor Murphy analyses a complex female character
LIKE A PETULANT TEENAGERSHE DISMISSES THE EMOTIONAL NEEDS OF HER AGING FATHER FORHEROWN CONCEPT OF WHAT IS RIGHT
Cordelia is a spoilt brat. She has read too many fairy tales about beautiful princesses and believes them without irony. And why shouldn’t she? Her father treats her like a favourite. Goneril and Regan are often portrayed as the evil ugly sisters but, in reality, they are only trying to compensate for the way they are being treated. They are doing what they can to get through a world where their own father sees them as less important than their youngest sister.
Lear openly calls Cordelia his ‘joy’ right in front of his two elder daughters. Now, there may be a reason for this. Cordelia is the youngest. Maybe she reminds Lear of his wife. Maybe his wife died in childbirth, or close to it. Goneril and Regan are comfortable in this man’s world of violence, indeed they seem to take it too far for the likes of Albany and Kent. Is that due to the lack of a feminine influence? Lear became King in this world. Maybe he didn’t treat his wife the way he would have liked, maybe he treats Cordelia the way he does to compensate for this. That’s a lot of maybes.
What we do know is that Cordelia has been brought up to think quite a lot of herself.
Her aging father simply wants to hear how much his daughter loves him. This is a world without love, a world of violence and aggression. But Lear, too late, realises what is really important; family. Note how Gloucester tells Kent that he will be not be dividing the kingdom and according to which Duke he prefers. This would have been the norm in the world of Lear. Men dominate. This is what Goneril and Regan know. But Lear wants to hear about the love his family have for him. He’s getting old, he wants to know that his family care.
How does his favourite treat this plea for acceptance? She ignores it. Like a petulant teenager she dismisses the emotional needs of her aging father for her own concept of what is right. When a small white lie will suffice to bring cheer to her parent she prefers the silence of the spoilt. She sees herself as more important. Her line ‘no more, no less’ is the sharpest cut. She may not have been able to ‘heave [her] heart into [her] mouth’ but she didn’t have to be so blunt.
They live in a world where love can be measured, halved, shared, like the map that Lear uses to divide up his kingdom. They must all learn that love can expand, grow and embrace everyone and everything.
Goneril and Regan play the game. They may be over the top, they may have ulterior motives, but they may, just may, be taking this opportunity to be honest and, in that moment, to receive that real love back. Or at least an approximation of love, what they think love might be.
But Cordelia refuses to play this game.
Through his rage Lear reaffirms to the two daughters, the familial hierarchy. He reinforces in them the idea that some people are more important than others, even in families.
Goneril and Regan must return to what they know and understand; violence and destruction. They must act like men, only more so. Gouge eyes, kill servants. They see their father banish Cordelia and Kent, who was like a son, so they must too banish those that don’t fit into their world view. This time it’s their father.
They see their privileged sister being taken away by France, one of the most powerful Kings, so powerful that Lear didn’t want him to lower himself by taking Cordelia without a dowry.
And France takes her away because he loves her. Her honesty makes her lovable. This is not something that the women can understand. Edmund though, him they do understand. In him they see a violent, aggressively confident man. Does he remind them of their father when he was younger and in his prime?
Cordelia, still in her bubble of privilege, is easily captured. She has brought a huge army from France but her arrogance has been her downfall. Must run in the family.
Her death isn’t tragic. Her death is the death of the arrogant and privileged. It is her sisters’ deaths that we must mourn. Death of two women who simply wanted their father’s love. Two women forced to act like men to get on in the world. Two women that didn’t get a chance to be women.