Lear Title character of King Lear, an ancient king of Britain. Lear rejects Cordelia, his only honest daughter, when he mistakes her frankness for a lack of affection. He is then rejected by his other two daughters Regan and Goneril, to whom he has granted his kingdom, and finds himself wandering in the wilderness outcast and insane. His prideful wrath has blinded him to the difference between good and evil, but before the play's end he recovers his sanity in part, although too late to prevent the tragedy of Cordelia's death However, in the course of his trials he does come to recognize his failings, which constitutes the play's most important lesson. 

Lear's descent into madness, the central event of the play, illustrates the extent to which humanity can be degraded by its errors. Lear is both victim and perpetrator, for his own egocentricity has sparked the events that lead to his collapse; his ensuing suffering is a result of his inadequacy as a human being Thus his story presents to us a powerful demonstration of humanity's frailty, and the consequent potential for tragedy in life. 

Our horror at Lear's tale is alleviated somewhat by his partial recognition and acceptance of his failings Lear s trials have been variously interpreted They may be seen as comparable to God's punishment for sins; his recognition of his fault is followed by reconciliation with Cordelia, which is suggestive of God's forgiveness following a sinner's repentance. That the relief is accompanied by death suggests the importance of the Christian afterlife and its eternal mercy but this promise is lacking in Lear's pagan world. In a non-religious interpretation, Lear's endurance is heroic in itself, and his triumph lies in his acceptance of his errors before he dies. These two interpretations are not, of course, mutually exclusive: Lear is heroic in both senses. Also, most commentators agree that Lear's suffering is finally redemptive, in that it leads to heightened consciousness on his part. Further, Lear's last words seem to indicate (though the question is disputed) that he dies believing that Cordelia is alive which implies a happy resolution in death akin to that of Gloucester, whose heart 'Burst smilingly' (5.3. 198), and whose sufferings conspicuously parallel Lear's. 

In the course of his wanderings, both physical and mental, the distracted Lear is able to understand his folly. He first recognizes a general lack in his conduct as a ruler. Raving madly in the storm, Lear suddenly realises that he had been previously unaware of hunger and homelessness, and he sees that the knowledge would have been valuable to him as king. He tells himself 'Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel, /That thou mayst shake the superflux to them, / And show the Heavens more just' (3.4.34-36). 

Lear comes to a more personal acknowledgement of fault, though his progress is fitful. At first, his guilt takes an unhealthy, morbid form, as he castigates himself for having fathered his daughters, seeing the fault in the sexual process rather than in his egotistical demands. While still on the stormy moor, he declares his torment to be 'Judicious punishment! 'twas this flesh begot / Those pelican daughters' (3.4.73-74). He elaborates on these sentiments when he equates female sexuality with the torments of hell, in 4.6.117-128. Lear's attitude towards sex—also displayed by Edgar—is evidence of the unhealthy mental and moral state of the play's world. 

However, before his lowest point, Lear learns of Cordelia's faithfulness and realises the wrong he has done her. As Kent reports, 'burning shame' (4.3.46) drives him from her camp. While wandering in the fields nearby, he encounters the blinded Gloucester and, stirred by the sight of another sufferer, acknowledges his own weakness—'they told me I was every thing', he says of his former courtly flatterers, adding sardonically,' 'tis a lie, I am not ague-proof (4.6.104-105). Later, as part of his remarks on patience, he declares the weakness of all humanity, firmly including himself. He is raving, but the tone of his lament is clear enough; the arrogance that informed his earlier vow of revenge is entirely gone. Finally, in Cordelia's presence, he declares himself'a very foolish fond old man' (4.7.60) and admits that he has wronged her. He asks her to 'forget and forgive' (4.7.84), and later, as father and daughter are taken to prison, he is pleased at the prospect of perpetual atonement: 'I'll kneel down, /And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live . . .' (5.3.10-11). 

Duke of Albany is the virtuous but weak husband of Leap’s villainous daughter, Goneril. Albany, who does not discover his wife's wickedness until too late, eventually aids the banished Lear and formally restores him to power just before his death. In this way he represents an instance of moral growth in a degraded world. At the play's close he is the ruler of Britain, sharing power with Edgar and Kent, and intent on repairing the damage to the state that Lear's crisis has produced. In the final lines, Albany offers a possible lesson to be drawn from the tragedy, saying, 'The weight of this sad time we must obey' (5.3.322); he recognizes the need to be aware of human susceptibility to catastrophic error, as Lear did not. (Albany's lines here are sometimes given to Edgar, as in the First Folio text.) 

Earl of Kent is a nobleman faithful to King Lear. Kent attempts to dissuade the king from his catastrophic decision to banish Cordelia when she honestly admits that her love will go to her husband as well as her father, but Lear banishes him as well for interfering. Kent then disguises himself and attempts to assist Lear when he is rejected by his other daughters, Regan and Goneril. He succeeds in keeping Lear safe from possible murder, and he reunites the king and Cordelia at Dover. His conflict with Goneril's steward Oswald stresses an important value in the play, the association of virtue with gentlemanly behavior. Kent's steadfast honesty and loyalty is contrasted with the courtier's self-serving ambition. However, when Cordelia's invasion fails and she and Lear are captured by Edmund, Kent is helpless. As he witnesses Lear's death at the play's close, he exclaims, 'Break, heart; I prithee, break!' (5.3.311). Whether he refers to his own heart or Lear's, this forsaken cry is emblematic of the sorrowful view of humanity's plight that is an important theme of the play. Yet Kent's final declaration of his own imminent death, 'I have a journey, sir, shortly to go; / My master calls me, I must not say no' (5.3.320-321) also contributes to the play's sense of the nobility of human suffering. 

Earl of Gloucester is the father of Edgar and Edmund. Gloucester is the central figure of the play's subplot, in which his illegitimate son Edmund's villainy and his own error lead him to disaster and suffering from which he recovers only to die.  This progression parallels the story of King Lear in the main plot. Deceived by Edmund, who wants to inherit the earldom, Gloucester disinherits and banishes his legitimate son Edgar. Because Gloucester is faithful to the outcast and insane Lear, Edmund turns him over to Lear's enemy, the Duke of Cornwall, who puts out Gloucester's eyes and banishes him into the wilderness. Edgar, disguised as a wandering lunatic, tends to his father. He saves him from suicide, in 4.6, and renews in him the strength to endure. Finally, however, when Gloucester learns Edgar's identity, the old man dies; 'his flaw'd heart, . . . 'Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief, / Burst smilingly' (5.3.195-198). 

Edgar is the banished son of the Earl of Gloucester. Misled by his illegitimate son Edmund, Gloucester formally exiles Edgar to the wilderness; this action parallels King Lear’s rejection of his daughter Cordelia. In 2.3 under threat of execution, Edgar disguises himself as a wandering lunatic.  When Lear is banished by his villainous daughters the disguised Edgar accompanies him, in 3.4 and 3.6. When Gloucester is blinded and expelled because he has remained loyal to Lear, Edgar, still disguised, becomes his father's guide, in 4.1, and saves him from suicide and a murder attempt by Oswald, in 4.6. In Act 5 Edgar finally takes control of the play, exposing Edmund and Goneril’s plot to murder the Duke of Albany and defeating Edmund in a trial by combat. At the play's close Edgar is invited by Albany to share in the rule of Britain; with his final lines, he offers a possible lesson to be drawn from the play—that we must be aware of our human susceptibility to folly, as Lear was not—saying, 'The weight of this sad time we must obey' (5.3.322). (In some editions these lines are given to Albany.) 

As the insane Tom O'Bedlam, Edgar embodies the play's theme of disease and misery as products and emblems of human folly. Tom blames his insanity on his sexual promiscuity, thus illustrating the morbid attitude towards sex that permeates the world of the play. Similarly, when he is again himself, Edgar attributes Gloucester's tragedy to 'The dark and vicious place' (5.3.171) where Edmund was conceived, that is, to sex outside of marriage. 

Edmund is the unscrupulous and ambitious illegitimate son of the Earl of Gloucester. Edmund' conspires against his legitimate brother Edgar, who is banished into the wilderness in 2.1; he betrays his father to King Lear’s evil daughter Regan and her husband, the Duke of Cornwall, who put out the old man's eyes, in 3.7; and he pursues a love affair with Lear's other daughter Goneril, with whom, in 4.2, he plots to murder her husband, the Duke of Albany. When Cornwall is killed the widowed Regan schemes to take Edmund from Goneril, and this unsavory love triangle is an important part of the play's atmosphere of moral collapse. 

In Act 5 Edmund leads Cornwall's army against the supporters of Lear's faithful daughter Cordelia; victorious, he thwarts Albany's plans for mercy and imprisons Lear and Cordelia, ordering their execution. Edgar learns of the plot against Albany, charges Edmund with treason and challenges him to a trial by combat, wounding him fatally. The dying Edmund confesses his intention towards Lear, but it is too late to prevent Cordelia's death, and Lear dies of a broken heart soon thereafter. 

Edmund's villainy is a central element in King Lear; his schemes are crisply executed and do much to pro- vide a dramatic structure in the subplot that the more idea-oriented main story lacks. However, Edmund is a stereotypical villain with little human complexity—his deeds are more interesting than he is himself—and his schemes are effective due to the moral weakness of others, not his compelling personality. His declaration of repentance—'some good I mean to do / Despite of mine own nature' (5.3.242-243)—is perfunctory and unconvincing. It serves to spark the final episode—Lear's fatal grief—after which Edmund is carried away to die. Albany's brusque dismissal of the news of his death demonstrates the extent of the villain's defeat; compared to the lessons to be absorbed from Lear's end, Edmund's demise is 'but a trifle here' (5.3.294). 

Shakespeare identified Edmund's unscrupulous ambition with a troubling social phenomenon of his own day, the rise of the new commercially active classes—the bourgeoisie of the cities and the lesser landowners, or gentry, of the countryside. The success of these groups depended on their willingness to engage in trade and banking, as opposed to the traditional dependence on the land, and in this they were at odds with the great territorial nobles of the old aristocracy.  A worldly emphasis on practical finance characterized the commercial classes, and this was regarded as unscrupulous by hostile eyes. From this point of view, Edmund represents the new man in his lack of chivalric scruples and his concern for his own advancement. 

Fool is the court jester to King Lear. The Fool sees that Lear should not have rejected Cordelia and placed himself in the power of Regan and Goneril, and he repeatedly reminds his master of this. He employs barbed quips, for instance, having caused Lear to observe that 'nothing can be made out of nothing', the Fool remarks,'. . . so much the rent of his land comes to' (1.4.130-132). He also utters simple truths, such as 'Thou should'st not have been old till thou hadst been wise' (1.5.41-42). He strives to use his wit to ease Lear's mind as the king goes insane, and he accompanies him into the stormy wilderness in Act 3. The Fool is last seen leaving with Lear and Kent after Gloucester has warned them of a murder plot against the king. His last line, 'And I'll go to bed at noon' (3.6.83), suggests an early death, but his fate is not reported. 

The Fool is deeply moved by Lear's plight, but he is capable of detachment from it. Lear's Fool shares with other Shakespearean jesters, such as Feste and Touchstone, an irony that permits him to comment on the action of the play, as does a Chorus. With jokes, riddles, and scraps of Song he clarifies the central situation by commenting on it more intelligently than the other characters. Especially pertinent is his observation, '. . . the Fool will stay, / And let the wise man fly' (2.4.79-80); with it he makes a declaration of loyalty that helps contrast a moral world with the tragic one that dominates the play. Similarly, his sanity is a foil for Lear's increasing disintegration. 

Oswald is the steward of King Lear’s villainous daughter Goneril. In 1.3 Oswald coolly accepts Goneril's instructions to treat her father insolently, for she wishes to humiliate him thoroughly. In 1.4 Oswald acts upon these orders. Thus, the steward is identified with his mistress as a villain, and when Lord Kent beats him and drives him away, we approve. In 2.2 Kent encounters Oswald again and berates him in a long, comical series of insults that focus on the steward's pretensions to gentlemanly status.  Kent's speech is a scathing critique of the vain, self serving 'glass-gazing, super-serviceable' (2.2.16-17) courtier that Oswald seems to be. Less prominent after these encounters, Oswald principally serves Goneril as a messenger, until, in 4.5, he delivers a letter to Regan and accepts her implied commission to kill the outcast and blinded Earl of Gloucester. When he encounters Gloucester in the next scene he attempts to do so, only to be killed himself by the blind man's son, Edgar. With his dying breath he begs his killer to make amends by delivering his letters. He thus demonstrates loyalty to his mistress—he is indeed 'super-serviceable'—while at the same time he reveals her secrets and provides for her ultimate downfall in the final scene. 

Gentleman is a follower of Lear. The Gentleman assists the loyal Kent in his efforts to aid the wandering and insane king.  Primarily a useful attendant, the Gentleman delivers two important descriptions that help form the audience's responses to the play in significant ways. In 3.1 he reports vividly to Kent on Lear's raging in the storm and prepares the audience for the wild scene to follow. In 4.3 he movingly describes Cordelia’s haunting response to the news of her wretched father. Rich in religious imagery, this passage provides a strong sense of Cordelia's saintly nature, a central image of the play.  Also a second Gentleman is a follower of the Duke of Albany. In 5.3, the horrified Gentleman announces the deaths of Goneril and Regan. Goneril has stabbed herself after confessing that she poisoned Regan. The character adds to the increasing hysteria of the final scene.

Goneril is one of the villainous daughters of King Lear. Goneril and her sister Regan declare their great love for Lear, in 1.1, when in fact they merely want the portion of his kingdom that he has foolishly promised to whichever daughter can assure him she loves him most. They share the prize when their honest younger sister Cordelia enrages the king with a frank admission that her love will be given in part to her future husband. Goneril takes the lead in the two sisters' villainy. She introduces the idea of humiliating Lear, in 1.1, and she orders her steward, Oswald, to commence the practice, in 1.3. In 1.4 she starts the dispute over Lear's followers that sends the ex-king fleeing into the storm, where he descends into madness. In 4.2 Goneril's wickedness becomes more pronounced as she enters into a love affair with the ambitious Edmund and hints at the existence of a murder plot against her husband, the virtuous but weak Duke of Albany. She and Regan both desire Edmund, and Goneril declares that she would rather lose the battle against the avenging forces led by Cordelia than lose Edmund to her sister. This rivalry depicts the vicious sexuality that is part of the play's general atmosphere of moral and physical unhealthiness. When Goneril and Edmund's plot against Albany is exposed, she poisons Regan and then commits suicide as the Gentleman reports in 5.3.225-226. 

Cordelia is the virtuous daughter whom King Lear mistakenly rejects. Knowing she will marry, Cordelia refuses to assert that all of her love will forever go to her father, unlike Regan and Goneril, her hypocritical sisters. Lear mistakes Cordelia's honesty for a lack of affection and disinherits her, though the King of France recognizes her innate worth and marries her anyway. She leaves Britain with him at the end of 1.1 and does not reappear until Act 4, when she arrives with an army. She intends to restore her father to his throne, for he has been humiliated and banished to the wilderness by Regan and Goneril. Lear and Cordelia are reunited, but are nonetheless defeated in battle, and the villainous Edmund imprisons them and orders their murder, in 5.3. Although Edmund is defeated by Edgar it is too late; the assassin has killed Cordelia, though Lear kills him. In the play's final episode Lear grieves over his daughter's corpse and dies of a broken heart. 

During her long absence from the play we are not permitted to forget Cordelia, for her goodness and self-sacrifice are central to the tragedy: the Fool is said to have 'much pined away' for her, in 1.4.72; in 2.2, the loyal Kent reveals that she knows of Lear's situation; Lear himself refers to her in 2.4.211; and her invasion force is mentioned several times, beginning in 3.1.30. 

Many commentators believe that Shakespeare specifically intended Cordelia as an example of the Christian virtues of self-sacrifice and acceptance of God's will. Cordelia accepts her undeserved fate while she displays undiminished love for her erring father. In this view she is a Christ like figure in a pagan world who offers a suggestion of Christianity's coming redemption of humanity. Her death thus symbolizes Christ's crucifixion, and the tragedy's lesson is the mysterious nature of God's will. A non-religious interpretation of Cordelia's sacrifice is also proposed by many critics, who see her virtue as its own reward, for as a pagan she lacks the Christian's promise of recompense in the afterlife. In this humanistic view her goodness inspires our admiration all the more for being unrewarded, and the pure light of her courage offers the most compelling sense that the play's tragedy is not utterly futile. Also,

many critics hold that Shakespeare intended Lear to die believing that Cordelia is still alive, in which case his own fate is greatly eased, and we can feel more strongly the redemptive effect of her virtues. A final variation on her importance does not diminish it: some writers hold that King Lear reflects a despairing and pessimistic view of life that denies aid for human folly in a tragic universe. In this interpretation Cordelia's virtues, combined with the injustice of both her rejection by her father and her ultimate death, offer striking confirmation of the dire point of view attributed to the playwright. 

In almost any view Cordelia's manifest virtue is a dominating element of the play, giving her an importance seemingly unjustified by her relatively few appearances on stage. In her pure honesty and unqualified love she seems almost devoid of ordinary human personality traits, and her saintly qualities are especially stressed by the Gentleman who reports on her in 4.3, preparing the audience for her return to the drama. In a passage rich in imagery and rhetoric he describes her mingled joy and sorrow at news of Lear, saying, for instance, '. . . she shook / The holy water from her heavenly eyes' (4.3.29-30). Later, she is described as one 'Who redeems nature from the general curse' (4.6.203). Evoked in these terms, Cordelia resembles an angel more than she does a worldly character. Her vague personality contributes to our sense of dislocation in King Lear. She is remote from the more active figures, even the fighters against evil, Edgar, Kent, and Albany, and this draws attention to the failure of human interaction in the play's tragic universe.  

Messenger is a servant of Regan. In 4.2 the Messenger interrupts a dispute between Goneril and Albany with the news that Gloucester has been blinded and Cornwall is dead. Goneril immediately withdraws to plan her selfish response to the latter event, in contrast to her husband's shocked dismay over the former. The Messenger then adds that Gloucester had been betrayed by his son Edmund. The episode stresses the evil that Albany realises he must oppose as the play approaches its climax.