Essay On Goneril In King Lear

In King Lear, it is Lear’s abdication of his throne which acts as a trigger for the eldest daughters. They share the motives of ambition and greed in their quest to rule all of England which is made infinitely easier once their youngest sister, Cordelia, is banished by their father. Goneril and Regan are initially established as a single entity and, therefore, a single evil as Regan confirms early in the play when she declares:

Sir, I am made

Of the self-same mettle that my sister is,

And prize me at her worth (1.1.67-69).

They rely only on each other because they find their father to be a senile old man and their husbands to be useless in the journey to their endgame. They know that separately they do not have the strength necessary to complete their agenda of assuming complete control over the kingdom. This is especially evident in Regan’s case as she must ride her sister’s coattails in all other matter due to the fact that she is the second born daughter. As the ‘extra’ child, per say, she must maintain her position in the good graces of their father by being the one who loves him “more than words can wield the matter” (1.1.53). Throughout the play it is made clear that Regan comes in second to Goneril in terms of both intelligence and cunning, therefore she must make herself stand out in any way possible, even in terms of violence, which becomes evident in later actions.

In Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is motivated by ambition to raise her own status as well as that of her husband. In the letter she receives from her husband he refers to her as his “dearest partner of greatness” (1.5.11). The strength of her marriage to Macbeth is what enables her to have such a great influence over him which then spurs him to action. Just as ...

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... and Regan. As she walks the castle she continuously moves her hands as if miming the action of washing her hands and states, “Yet who would have thought the/ old man to have had so much blood in him?” (5.1.33-34). This is ironic in the way that earlier she called her husband a fool for obsessing over blood which could easily be removed by a bit of water, yet she is having an attack of conscience in seeing her own hands stained with the innocent blood. As she later kills herself offstage, Lady Macbeth can be appreciated as a uniquely tragic character acting as a sacrifice for the power she had actively sought out. Due to the fact that she, as well as the sisters, crossed the gender lines which society had specifically lain out, it can be seen as a sort of poetic justice that they all had to die in order to correct the abominations they had created within themselves.