Love Between Parents and Children in Shakespeare’s ‘King Lear’

One of the play’s central tragedies is that the younger generation has forgotten (or rejected) its bond with the older generation.

Considered one of Shakespeare’s greatest plays, “King Lear” was likely written when he was sheltering down during the Plague. In this 1897–1898 painting by American artist Edward Austin Abbey, Cordelia (center) is banished by her elderly father and king, Lear, for not flattering him, while her elder sisters (L) look on, and the King of France impressed with her honesty, kisses her hand. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public Domain

The entire plot of “King Lear” hinges on the relationship between parents and children. Thematically, that relationship forms both the deepest tragedy and the deepest hope in the play. “Lear” is a bleak drama—among Shakespeare’s bleakest—yet even so, instances of quiet, faithful love emerge in the play, like distant pricks of starlight not quite blotted out by stormy clouds.

A Loyal Daughter

At the beginning of the work, old King Lear, looking to lay aside the heavy burden of the crown, “to shake all cares and business” from his old age, plans to divide his kingdom among his three daughters. But each daughter’s share of the kingdom will depend on how profusely she proclaims her love for him. The more love she shows, the greater her inheritance.

Lear’s two older daughters, Goneril and Regan, gush over their father, wildly and exaggeratedly protesting their love. They claim that he is dearer to them than eyesight, freedom, health, beauty, honor, and life itself. But their tongues are venom, and their eyes are sharp with greed.