In scene one, Edmund preys on his father’s and Edgar’s fears by appealing to religion and politics. He tells Gloucester that Edgar wants him dead, even though “the revenging gods / ‘Gainst parricides did all the thunder bend.” He tells Edgar that the Duke of Cornwall seeks his life and implies Edgar has taken the Duke of Albany’s side.
In that same scene, we discover that Lear is Edgar’s godfather and even named the child. Ironically, Gloucester comes to Regan for help. She’s more like Edmund, the treacherous child, than she is a forgiving parent.
In scene three, children represent their parents, subjects their rulers. When Regan mistreats Kent, she mistreats Lear. By supporting Kent, Cordelia supports Lear. Who you serve matters. Oswald serves his mistress, Goneril, provoking conflict with Kent, Lear’s servant. Regan demonstrates wrath, Cordelia grace.
Regan openly shows disdain for Lear in scene 4. “Nature in you stands on the very verge / Of his confine,” she tells him. “You should be ruled and led.” Lear threatens her, telling her, “I gave you all.” Her response–“And in good time you gave it”–reveals her problem with Lear. She knows Lear loved Cordelia more. Lear gave land to Regan and Goneril not out of grace but because they flattered him. They “earned” their land. Now Lear expects grace from his daughters. All he finds is wrath.
Regan and Goneril tell their father he doesn’t “need” his retinue. He argues that a person’s “needs” exceed reason. Without grace, men are no better than animals. When grace is absent, wrath quickly follows. Lear accordingly threatens his daughters: “I will have such revenges on you both” that will include “The terrors of the earth.”
The sisters agree that Lear “must taste his folly.” They leave him to fend for himself as a storm approaches. They’re not punishing their father, they tell themselves. “The injuries” Lear brings upon himself “must be [his] schoolmaster.” Shakespeare gives the play’s first two acts a chiastic structure. In the play’s first scene, Lear banished Cordelia. Act 2 ends with Goneril and Regan exiling Lear.
Experiments in Criticism 