Cordelia is presented in the very first scene of the play
as the daughter of Lear that actually loves her father in fact and reality, rather than
just appearance. Her sisters, Goneril and Regan, are used as foils to emphasise her
love, kindness, devotion and honesty through their own deceit and lack of faith. This is
of course highlighted by the way in which Cordelia refuses to play both the game of her
father and the game of her sisters, and does not respond with the same flowerly
eloquence as Regan and Goneril, earning her banishment. Note how she bids her sisters
farewell in the opening scene:
I know you what you
are,
And like a sister am most loath to
call
Your faults as they are named. Love well our
father.
To your professed bosoms I commit
him.
The way in which
Cordelia is shown to truly love Lear, as opposed to just protesting that she loves him,
reinforces the extent of Lear's mistake in banishing her. Although Cordelia is absent
for the middle section of the play, the audience implicitly compares her attitude and
feelings towards her father with those expressed by Regan and
Goneril.
Of course, the character of Cordelia is used to
heighten the tragedy. She is described in terms that emphasise her beauty, goodness, and
honestly, and thus her return to Britain and her reunion with her father seems to
symbolically indicate the end of the anarchy and chaos that has dominated Lear's
kingdom, and the victory of forgiveness over hatred. That this moment is all too brief,
and ends with Cordelia's unjust death, makes the depth of the tragedy that much more
profound.
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