‘I loved her most, and thought to set my rest / On her kind nursery.’ (Lear, 1:1)

Lear says publicly that he loved Cordelia more than his other daughters and hoped to spend most of his retirement with her. This suggests that the sisters already know that Cordelia is their father’s favourite, which may have affected their relationships in the past.

‘they told me I was everything: ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof. ’ (Lear, 4:5)

Lear begins to realise that being flattered all his life because he is king was not helpful in making him see his own weaknesses.

‘I am a very foolish fond old man, / Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less, / And to deal plainly, I fear I am not in my perfect mind’ (Lear, 4:6)

Towards the end of the play, Lear recognises the limitations of being over 80 years old. He tells Cordelia he feels foolish and silly and fears his mental health has suffered.

‘'Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever but slenderly known himself.’ (Regan, 1:1)

King Lear’s judgement has got worse with age but his daughters don’t think he was ever very self aware.

‘You strike my people, and your disordered rabble / Make servants of their betters.’ (Goneril, 1:4)

Lear allows his followers to be rowdy.

LEAR: Dost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOL: All thy other titles thou hast given away, that thou wast born with. (1:4)

Lear doesn’t always behave wisely or sensibly.

‘I love your majesty / According to my bond, no more nor less.' (Cordelia, 1:1)

Cordelia loves her father as much as any child loves their parent but does not feel she can flatter her father by making him feel there is no room in her heart for any other love.

‘If for I want that glib and oily art / To speak and purpose not, since what I will intend / I’ll do’t before I speak’ (Cordelia, 1:1)

Cordelia prefers to show rather than describe her feelings.

'No blown ambition doth our arms incite, / But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right‘ (Cordelia, 4:3)

Cordelia proclaims that she is leading a French invasion against the British army out of love for her father, not political ambition.

‘she whom even but now was your object, / The argument of your praise, balm of your age, / The best, the dearest’ (France, 1:1)

As a visitor to Lear’s court, France has been led to believe that Cordelia is very much Lear’s favourite child and worthy of his praise.

‘You have obedience scanted, / And well are worth the want that you have wanted.' (Goneril, 1:1)

Goneril suggests that her younger sister has not done her duty in refusing to flatter the King in public and deserves to be rejected for not showing such love.

‘Sir, I love you more than word can wield the matter, / Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty’ (Goneril, 1:1)

Goneril knows how to play the game her father sets up and makes a flattering and effective public speech about her love for her father.

‘By day and night he wrongs me: every hour / He flashes into one gross crime or other / That sets us all at odds.’ (Goneril, 1:3)

Goneril is offended by how her father treats her and how he behaves in her house.

‘I had rather lose the battle than that sister / Should loosen him and me.’(Goneril, 5:1)

Edmund has become the most important thing in Goneril’s life and she is determined not to lose him to her sister.

‘she hath tied / Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture, here‘ (Lear, 2:2)

Lear says that his daughter’s behaviour towards him feels like a vulture pecking at his heart.

‘See thyself, devil! / Proper deformity seems not in the fiend / So horrid as in woman’ (Albany, 4:2)

Albany calls his wife a fiend and a devil and implies her evil behaviour is all the worse because she is a woman.

‘I am made of that self-mettle as my sister, / And prize me at her worth. In my true heart, / I find she names my very deed of love: / Only she comes too short‘ (Regan, 1:1)

Regan knows how to flatter her father, publicly declaring her love to be even greater than her sister’s.

‘It was great ignorance, Gloucester’s eyes being out, / To let him live: where he arrives he moves / All hearts against us.’ (Regan, 4:4)

This shows Regan’s callous attitude towards the suffering of Gloucester, but also her understanding that others will feel sorry for Gloucester and that this might make them take sides against her.

‘My lord is dead: Edmund and I have talked, / And more convenient is he for my hand / Than for your lady’s’ (Regan, 4:5)

In telling Oswald to warn Goneril away from Edmund, Regan seems very practical in deciding that she should marry Edmund.

‘thou better know’st / The offices of nature, bond of childhood, / Effects of courtesy, dues of gratitude: / Thy half o’th’kingdom hast thou not forgot, / Wherein I thee endowed.’ (Lear, 2:2)

Lear believes that Regan is different to her older sister and that she will be grateful to him for all he has given her.

‘I would not see thy cruel nails / Pluck out his poor old eyes‘ (Gloucester, 3:7)

Gloucester accuses Regan of cruelty in how she has treated her father.

‘O, madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked!’ (Gloucester, 2:1)

Gloucester tells Regan that his heart is broken by the discovery that his son Edgar has been plotting against him.

‘my duty cannot suffer / T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands’ (Gloucester, 3:4)

Gloucester feels a strong sense of duty and loyalty to the old king which is stronger than his sense of duty to obeying the new rulers when their commands seem cruel.

‘I stumbled when I saw.’ (Gloucester, 4:6)

Gloucester realises that he was blind to the truth when he still had his eyes and was mistaken in how he judged his sons.

’A credulous father’ (Edmund, 1:2)

Edmund thinks his father is easily fooled.

‘a published traitor’ (Oswald, 4:5)

Gloucester has been proclaimed as a traitor by the lawful leaders of the country.

‘My father compounded with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major, so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am had the maidenliest star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.’ (Edmund, 1:1)

Edmund does not believe in the superstitions of astrology that say he should be a certain way because of the position of the stars when he was born.

‘This seems a fair deserving and must draw me / That which my father loses: no less than all. / The younger rises when the old doth fall.’ (Edmund, 3:3)

Edmund seems to believe that when the old behave foolishly, the young should take their place. He suggests his father deserves to be betrayed and that he deserves to take all his father’s wealth.

‘Yet Edmund was beloved: / The one the other poisoned for my sake / And after slew herself.’ (Edmund, 5:3)

Edmund feels that Goneril and Regan’s fatal jealousy proves they did love him. This might suggest it is the first time he has felt loved.

’I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed to’t.’ (Gloucester, 1:1)

Gloucester talks openly with Kent about Edmund’s illegitimacy, suggesting that Edmund may often have heard people talk about him in this way.

‘Maugre thy strength, place, youth and eminence, / Despise thy victor sword and fire-new fortune, / Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor: / False to thy gods, thy brother and thy father, / Conspirant gainst this high illustrious prince’ (Edgar, 5:3)

Edmund has achieved what he set out to achieve, taking his father’s place and achieving victory in the battle, but he has betrayed his religion, his family, and his country in the process.

‘Poor Turlygod, poor Tom! / That’s something yet: Edgar I nothing am.’ (Edgar, 1:1)

Edgar has to give up everything including his home, his comforts and his identity, in order to become ‘Poor Tom’.

‘A most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows, / Who, by the art of known and feeling sorrows, / Am pregnant to good pity.’ (Edgar, 4:5)

Although he is speaking in disguise as ‘Poor Tom’, Edgar also seems to be speaking about himself as he tells his blinded father of how his misfortunes have made him more sympathetic to the misfortunes of others.

‘Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither: / Ripeness is all’ (Edgar 5:2)

Edgar is trying to encourage his father to keep going but this also seems to suggest something about his beliefs – that we must be ready to deal with whatever life sends us and keep going.

‘a brother noble, / Whose nature is so far from doing harms / That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty / My practices ride easy.’ (Edmund, 1:2)

Edmund regards his brother as honest, trustworthy and someone easy to fool because he believes that everyone else is as honest and trustworthy as him.

'Methought thy very gait did prophesy / A royal nobleness’ (Albany, 5:3)

Albany sensed that Edgar was a gentleman of royal blood by the way he walked and presented himself.

‘But I will tarry, the fool will stay, / And let the wise man fly: / The knave turns fool that runs away, / The fool no knave, perdy.' (The Fool, 2:2)

The Fool is loyal to Lear and stays with him despite understanding that others are abandoning him because of his change in fortunes .

‘This cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.’ (The Fool, 3:4)

As the Fool sees Lear and Poor Tom behaving and speaking as though they have lost their minds, his own comments become more straightforward.

‘A bitter fool’ (Lear, 1:4)

The Fool’s role is to speak the truth to those in power. Many of the Fool’s jokes reflect the truth to Lear, which can seem bitter to him, rather than being funny.

‘your all-licensed fool’ (Goneril, 1:4)

Lear allows the Fool to get away with behaviour that other servants would not get away with.

‘Since my young lady’s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away.’ (Knight, 1:4)

The Fool seems to have been close to Cordelia and misses her.

‘My life I never held but as pawn / To wage against thine enemies, ne’er fear to lose it, / Thy safety being motive.’ (Kent, 1:1)

Kent is fiercely loyal to Lear and his loyalty includes speaking up when he feels the king needs advice.

LEAR: Will’t break my heart?
KENT: I had rather break mine own. (3:4)

Kent tells King Lear he will put his life before his own.

‘It is the stars, / The stars above us govern our conditions, / Else one self mate and make could not beget / Such different issue.’ (Kent, 4:3)

Kent, like Gloucester, believes that people’s characters are made by the position of the stars at their birth.

’And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! His offence, honesty! ’Tis strange.’ (Gloucester, 1:2)

Kent seems to be regarded by other courtiers, such as Gloucester, as a good man who is loyal to the king.

‘This ancient ruffian’ (Oswald, 1:2)

Because of his insults, attitude, and insistence on fighting , Oswald, Cornwall and Regan regard the disguised Kent as an old thug.

‘O thou good Kent, how shall I live and work / To match thy goodness? My life will be too short, / And every measure fail me.’ (Cordelia, 4:6)

Cordelia is deeply grateful to Kent for looking out for her father at such risk to himself.

‘Wisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile: / Filths savour but themselves.’ (Albany 4:2)

Albany believes he is right to feel loyalty to the king rather than siding with his wife, who seems vile and filthy to him.

‘Where I could not be honest, / I never yet was valiant.’ (Albany 5:1)

Albany regards honesty as an important value.

’never man so changed. / I told him of the army that was landed, / He smiled at it: I told him you were coming, / His answer was ‘The worse’’ (Oswald, 4:2)

Albany seems happy that the French army has landed and unhappy that his wife has returned home. Oswald feels this is a change in his master’s attitude.

‘Milk-livered man, / That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs’ (Goneril, 4:2)

Goneril regards her husband as a coward who does not know what he is doing.