oh daddy you're the best.

Cordelia and Lear have the relationship that most girls have with their fathers. They love each other because they are supposed to, but it is still genuine. Cordelia knows she is adored by her father and wants to express this to him as honestly as possible. But considering her father is so crazy obsessive with himself and his pride, he cant see past her lack of words to her love. He thinks that if she really loves him she should be able to say all the things she means, because everyone else does. But what he doesn’t realize is that no one else actually loves him and that is why they can say all those great things about him.

When people want something, especially someone like the other sisters, they will do anything they can to make sure it happens. People act out of their own self interest. They aren’t thinking about their father and his feelings or pride, they are thinking about what they can get out of him, and that is why they do not have a hard time lying to him. Lying comes naturally to a person who is that desperate and power hungry.

Everyone ‘plays the game.’ Even if you are just changing the tone of your voice, or the wording of a question to get what you want you are playing the game. If I know that if I yell something I wont get what I want, I will speak in a calm voice. Something as simple as that is playing the game. At least that’s what I would consider to be playing the game. Everyone also loses the game at some point because if they are talking to you like that, and tell you what you want to hear, you are of course going to give into it. Its human tendency.

ohh edmund. silly little boy. you cant kill your father...

Ohhh, poor Edmund. His dad had a fling with some woman and he was the product of it. In these times this is frowned upon and makes him a bastard son. Obviously when society even tells you that you are an illegitimate child, and the second child anyway, you aren’t going to get any inheritance. So he is distraught about that. What you have is everything. What you own makes you. He isn’t going to have anything, which makes him nothing, and he is already nothing because he is a bastard child.

He embarrasses his father. When a parent is embarrassed by their child and the child realizes it, it makes the child feel inferior. And in this case, he already feels inferior because he isn’t legitimate. Now he is freaking out and trying to overpower his father to compensate for the inferiority. He will feel accomplished or legitimate if he does that. It would somehow prove that he was superior or good enough to be the heir of his father’s fortune.

What I personally respect about Edmund is his creativity. I mean Edgar and his father are pretty stupid, but those are some pretty elaborate lies. I give him some credit for that. His ability to lie his way around to get what he wants is pretty impressive. I also would give him credit for taking charge of what he wants. I mean, killing your father and tricking your brother might not be the best way to go about it, but at least he has a plan for his life. And if it wall works out for him, he is going to have a pretty good life- minus the guilt of how he got there.

I guess I would say a modern equivalent is stepchildren. Having a child out of wedlock, is no longer thattt taboo. But stepchildren often seek the approval of the stepparent and may or may not receive it.