3. What reply did
What is Cordelia's answer to Lear's question, and why is Lear outraged by Cordelia's answer? Cordelia declares that she has "nothing" to say to her father in order to deserve her inheritance.
Why did Cordelia give him a different answer? Ans: Cordelia gave him a different answer because she genuinely loved her father unlike her sisters.
Key quotation: Cordelia's refusal
She has the natural love of a child for her parent and believes her father should recognise this without the kind of slick flattery offered by her sisters. By rejecting Cordelia's truthfulness, Lear begins the destruction of his world and his identity.
Goneril and Regan said that if their father was suffering , he himself was the one to blame.
Answer – Cordelia declares that she has “nothing” to say to her father in order to deserve her inheritance. She also explains that she only loves Lear “according to [her] bond; nor more nor less.” Lear is disappointed because Cordelia has always been his favorite daughter.
Regan urges Lear to restrain himself and behave as befits a man of his age. Regan also advises Lear to seek Goneril's forgiveness, which provokes the king to anger and cursing.
Cordelia returns at the end of the play with the intentions of helping Lear, ultimately reversing her role as daughter to that of mother. But when she arrives, Lear is not able to recognize her because of his state of madness. Nevertheless, she forgives him for banishing her.
But when queried by Lear, Cordelia replies that she loves him as a daughter should love a father, no more and no less. She reminds her father that she also will owe devotion to a husband when she marries, and therefore cannot honestly tender all her love toward her father.
Wilson and Cordelia kiss again and spend the night together in lovemaking. She wakes the next morning to an empty bed and is horrified to find she has grown very pregnant.
Cordelia had been taken over by the dark entity Jasmine (Gina Torres), which got pregnant so it could give birth to itself. Season 4 rewrote much of Cordelia's previous character arc, reframing her growth and agency as deliberate maneuvering to bring her under Jasmine's influence.
Cordelia genuinely loves her father, but her refusal to flatter him leads to the tragedy that unfolds. Cordelia's tears at the news of her father's treatment prove her compassion and establish that she is, indeed, the opposite of her sisters.
Lear, who has been sleeping, is brought in to Cordelia. He only partially recognizes her. He says that he knows now that he is senile and not in his right mind, and he assumes that Cordelia hates him and wants to kill him, just as her sisters do. Cordelia tells him that she forgives him for banishing her.
I love your Majesty according to my duty as a daughter. No more, no less. My honourable lord, you have conceived me, raised me up and loved me. I return those duties as is fair – obey you, love you, and honour you entirely.
Why do you think King Lear was unhappy about Cordelia's reply? Ans: King Lear was unhappy about Cordelia's reply because his two elder daughters had expressed great love for him, the elder saying that he was dearer than her own life and the middle daughter saying that she was happiest when she was with her father.
Cordelia's death highlights the injustice and brutality of the world in which the play is set. Her death ends Lear's last hope of happiness, and exposes fully the foolishness of his efforts to force his daughters to express their love for him.
Burgundy rejects Cordelia when he discovers that she will bring him no dowry or inheritance. Burgundy, who cannot love Cordelia without her wealth, is guilty of selfish motivations.
His last words are: “Look on her, look, her lips, / Look there, look there!” (V. iii.). In his dying moments, Lear still has not accepted that Cordelia is dead.
He divides his country between his elder daughters and their husbands. On learning that Cordelia will no longer inherit anything from Lear, the Duke of Burgundy withdraws his proposal of marriage. She leaves with the King of France who loves her more now that she has proved her honesty.
Cordelia and the French army save Lear, but the army is defeated. Edmund imprisons Cordelia and Lear. Edgar then mortally wounds Edmund in a trial by combat. Dying, Edmund confesses that he has ordered the deaths of Cordelia and Lear.
However, in The Last Hours, Cordelia chooses James because she loved him all along anyways. Cordelia also explains to Mattew that she wouldn't love him like he deserves to be loved.
Regan and Goneril, in denying Lear his servants, deny their father that which he needs the most: not what he needs to be a king, but what he needs to be a human being.
9–11). This blissful vision, however, is countered by the terrible despair that Lear evokes at Cordelia's death: “Thou'lt come no more, / Never, never, never, never, never.” (5.3. 306–307). Yet, despite his grief, Lear expires in a flash of utterly misguided hope, thinking that Cordelia is coming back to life.
Edmund swears his love to both Goneril and Regan and, when Cornwall dies, Regan puts him in charge of her troops and intends to marry him. After the battle against the French, because of all his betrayals, Edmund is challenged to a duel by Edgar, who kills him.
What question does Lear continue to ask that Regan will not answer? Lear demands to know who put his messenger in the stocks. What is Regan's response when Lear says that he and his knights will have nothing to do with Goneril and that he plans to move to her house instead?