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False Hope in King Lear
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Throughout Shakespeare’s King Lear, there is a sense of renewal, or as
L.C. Knights puts it, “affirmation in spite of everything,” in the play. These
affirmative actions are vividly seen throughout the play that is highly infused
with evil, immorality and perverted values. These glimpses of hope seem to
provide the reader with an underlying notion of human goodness that remains
present, throughout the lurking presence of immorality and a lack of values.
However, in the end it is questionable if these are true revelations, and if the
affirmative notions are undermined, and thus less significant than the evil in
which they are engulfed.
In Act I Scene I, the first glimmer of hope is revealed in the play at a
time of madness, corruption and despair. In this scene, King Lear has created
an environment of competition that promotes false flattery, among many other
things as he divides his kingdom in relation to the amount of love his daughters
profess to him. King Lear in his willfulness and arrogance does not see the
error that he makes in equating love with reward, in this competitive
environment.
Cordelia is the only one of the three sisters who cannot fully
participate in the competition to gain her father’s inheritance by engaging in
false flattery. Instead of trying to out due her sisters, she merely describes
her love in relation to their filial bond. Although her father views this as a
degrading insult and banishes her, it is shown that through her filial bond,
she loves her father with more depth and sincerity than her eager, self absorbed
sisters. Cordelia emerges amid the moral depravity and social decay as one who
is honest and true to her beliefs.
In banishing his daughter Cordelia from the kingdom and taking away her
inheritance, King Lear is destroying the natural order of society. She is left
abandoned by both her father and her presumed suitor, Burgundy. Yet Shakespeare
rewards Cordelia’s noble character with another suitor, the King of France.
Despite all that has occurred in relation to being left destitute and friendless,
France gladly accepts the estranged Cordelia as his bride to be and applauds her
