King Lear: Characters (OCR A Level English Literature): Revision Note

Characters

It is useful to think of each character as serving a particular function within the play. Understanding Shakespeare's purpose for each character will help you produce more sophisticated analysis. Consider what each character represents, how they reflect particular ideas or groups within society, and how their interactions with other characters develop the play's central themes. 

Below you will find character profiles of:

Main characters

• King Lear

• Edmund

• Edgar

• Gloucester

• Cordelia

• Lear's Fool

Other characters

• Goneril

• Regan

• Kent

• Albany

• Cornwall

• Oswald

• King of France

• Duke of Burgundy

King Lear

King Lear is the King of Britain, but he has tired of the responsibility. His decision to divide his kingdom between his daughters according to their declarations of love triggers the tragedy:

• He begins the play convinced that authority and status are inseparable from his identity, expecting to keep the "name and all th' addition to a king" even after giving up real power:

  • Goneril and Regan exploit this confusion almost immediately

• In the opening act, Lear can be described as arrogant and rash:

  • He rejects Cordelia for refusing to declare her love publicly, and banishes Kent for defending her, showing he values flattery over honesty

• As his daughters strip him of his knights and his authority, Lear's madness develops alongside a growing self-awareness he never had as king:

  • In the storm, he reflects for the first time on the suffering of the poor, admitting "I have ta'en / Too little care of this”

  • His fixation on Poor Tom (the disguised Edgar) as an "unaccommodated man" shows him beginning to value humanity stripped of rank and status

• Critics argue Lear represents the fragility of identity built entirely on power and title, rather than on relationships or self-knowledge

• Lear's development conveys themes of authority, justice and the cost of pride:

  • His reconciliation with Cordelia in Act 4 is one of the emotional and moral high points of the play, showing he has finally learned to value sincerity over performance

• Nevertheless, this insight arrives too late to prevent tragedy:

  • Cordelia's death and his own show that self-knowledge, however hard-won, cannot always undo the damage done by earlier pride

Edmund

Edmund is Gloucester's illegitimate son, and the play's most calculating villain:

• He resents being denied inheritance purely because of his illegitimacy, and rejects the social "custom" that disadvantages him in favour of his own ambition

• Edmund's character can be described as Machiavellian:

  • He manipulates both his father and his brother through forged letters and feigned loyalty, playing each against the other without either realising

  • He later exploits Goneril and Regan's rivalry for his affection, understanding that ambition, not desire, is what drives him

• Through Edmund, Shakespeare explores the theme of nature versus social convention:

  • Edmund positions himself as a follower of "Nature" rather than the rigid hierarchy of legitimacy that excludes him, making him a figure who exposes the arbitrary cruelty of the social order even as he ruthlessly exploits it

• Shakespeare presents Edmund as intelligent and self-aware, yet entirely bereft of conscience for most of the play:

  • His scheming directly causes his father's blinding and his brother's exile

• Nevertheless, in the final scene, Edmund attempts one act of good, trying to reverse his order for Cordelia's execution:

  • This comes too late to save her, suggesting that redemption, once pursued too late, cannot undo the consequences of earlier choices

Edgar

Edgar is Gloucester's legitimate son, falsely accused of plotting against his father by his half-brother Edmund:

• Forced into hiding, Edgar disguises himself as the mad beggar "Poor Tom", stripping himself of identity and status entirely:

  • This disguise allows Shakespeare to place Edgar directly alongside Lear during the storm, reinforcing the parallel between the two family plots

• Edgar's character can be described as endlessly resilient and quietly loyal:

  • He continues to protect and guide his blinded father without revealing his true identity, prioritising Gloucester's fragile hope over his own need for recognition

• Edgar's journey explores the idea of suffering as a path to moral growth:

  • His invented "cliff" deception at Dover is a lie told for entirely compassionate reasons, directly contrasting with Edmund's lies, which are told for selfish ones

• By the final act, Edgar emerges as the play's clearest agent of justice:

  • He defeats Edmund in single combat, formally ending his brother's scheme 

• In the resolution, Edgar is left to govern the kingdom:

  • Edgar becomes a figure of restored moral order, though the devastation around him means his inheritance is a burden as much as a reward

Gloucester

Gloucester is the Earl of Gloucester, whose subplot runs in close parallel to Lear's own story throughout the play:

• Like Lear, Gloucester is too easily persuaded by flattery and deception, disowning his loyal son Edgar after being shown a forged letter by his illegitimate son, Edmund

• In the early acts, Gloucester can be described as credulous and superstitious:

  • He blames recent eclipses for his family's misfortune rather than examining his own misjudgement

• Gloucester is physically blinded by Cornwall as punishment for helping Lear, a moment often read as the play's most literal representation of the "blindness" he has shown throughout:

  • Paradoxically, his loss of sight brings him closer to the truth, as he comes to recognise Edgar's innocence and his own folly

• The Earl of Gloucester's story explores the contrast between sight and insight:

  • His journey from trusting the wrong son to being guided, unknowingly, by the right one mirrors Lear's own journey from misjudgement to painful self-awareness

• Gloucester's death, from the shock of learning Edgar's true identity, closes the subplot just before Lear's own story reaches its end, reinforcing how closely the two men's fates run throughout the play

Cordelia

Cordelia is Lear's youngest daughter, whose refusal to flatter her father in the opening scene sets the tragedy in motion:

• She represents honesty and genuine love throughout the play, in direct contrast to her sisters' performed affection:

  • Her refusal to "heave my heart into my mouth" is not a lack of love, but a refusal to reduce love to a public performance

• Cordelia's character can be described as morally steadfast:

  • Despite being disinherited and banished, she returns to Britain with an army solely to rescue her father, never to claim territory for herself

• Through Cordelia, Shakespeare explores the theme of true love versus flattery, and the tragedy of virtue arriving too late to be properly valued:

  • Her reconciliation with Lear is genuinely restorative, but the play denies the audience a happy ending built on it

• Shakespeare positions Cordelia as the play's moral centre, yet she has relatively few lines and appears in only a handful of scenes:

  • Her influence on the plot is far larger than her stage presence

• Her death in the final act is one of the bleakest choices Shakespeare makes in any of his tragedies:

  • It denies the play the redemptive ending her return seemed to promise, reinforcing a far darker vision of justice than the audience may expect

Lear's Fool

Lear's Fool is his professional jester, and one of the only characters permitted to tell the king uncomfortable truths without punishment:

• The Fool's function is largely to speak wisdom disguised as nonsense, using riddles, songs and mockery to criticise Lear's decisions more honestly than anyone else dares to:

  • He repeatedly mocks Lear specifically for banishing Cordelia and handing power to Goneril and Regan, treating it as the single worst decision Lear has ever made

• The Fool's character can be described as loyal despite his own vulnerability:

  • He remains with Lear through the storm even as his own safety is at risk, and his jokes grow noticeably darker and more anxious as Lear's madness deepens

• The Fool embodies the idea of wisdom hidden within folly:

  • He repeatedly predicts the consequences of Lear's actions before they happen, acting almost as the audience's own conscience within the play

• The Fool disappears from the play entirely after Act 3 with no explanation given for his absence:

  • Some critics read this as Shakespeare signalling that his function, once Lear's own suffering has taught him the same lessons, is no longer needed

Other characters

Goneril

Goneril is Lear's eldest daughter, whose insincere declaration of love in Act 1 masks a ruthless pursuit of power:

• Her character represents ambition and the corrupting influence of power:

  • Once granted power, she moves swiftly to strip her father of his remaining knights and dignity

• She grows contemptuous of her husband Albany's weakness and begins an affair with Edmund

• Her rivalry with Regan over Edmund ultimately turns fatal: she poisons her sister before taking her own life once Edmund is exposed as a traitor

Regan

Regan is Lear's middle daughter, whose cruelty towards her father matches, and at points exceeds, Goneril's:

• She is complicit in Gloucester's blinding, showing open enthusiasm for Cornwall's violence rather than merely permitting it, and is presented as every bit as cruel and power-hungry as her husband

• Once widowed, she competes openly with Goneril for Edmund's affection, a rivalry that ultimately leads to her being poisoned by her own sister

Kent

Kent is a loyal nobleman banished by Lear for defending Cordelia in Act 1:

• Kent represents unwavering loyalty and integrity, values the play otherwise shows to be rare and costly

• He disguises himself as a servant in order to continue serving Lear despite his banishment, enduring humiliation in the stocks without ever abandoning his master

• He survives to the end of the play, but declines Albany's offer of joint rule, suggesting his sense of purpose was tied entirely to service rather than to power for its own sake

Albany

Albany is Goneril's husband, initially passive and easily overruled by his wife:

• His character develops across the play from uncertainty into moral opposition, representing the possibility of moral awakening, even if it comes too late to prevent tragedy

• He is horrified by Gloucester's blinding and Goneril's cruelty, eventually turning against his own wife and exposing her plot to have him murdered

• By the end of the play, he is one of the few surviving figures of authority, offering to share rule with Kent and Edgar

Cornwall

Cornwall is Regan's husband, and the play's most openly violent figure:

• His character represents unchecked cruelty and the abuse of power without restraint

• He personally blinds Gloucester on stage, one of the most violent moments in Shakespeare's work

• He is fatally wounded by a servant who is sickened by his cruelty, suggesting that even minor characters in the play are capable of the moral courage their social superiors lack

Oswald

Oswald is Goneril's steward, loyal to power rather than conscience:

• His character represents blind obedience, following his mistress's cruel instructions towards Lear without question

• He functions throughout the play as a link between the plotters, carrying letters and messages between Goneril, Regan and Edmund as their separate schemes begin to overlap

• He is killed by Edgar while attempting to murder the blinded Gloucester for a reward, a death that removes one of Goneril's few remaining instruments of control

King of France

The King of France marries Cordelia despite her losing her dowry after being disinherited:

• His character represents genuine respect for character over wealth or political advantage, directly contrasting with Burgundy's refusal

• He returns home shortly after the marriage, leaving Cordelia to lead the invading army herself, which allows her return to Britain to be framed as her own act of devotion rather than a foreign king's ambition

Duke of Burgundy

The Duke of Burgundy withdraws his marriage proposal to Cordelia once he learns she has been disinherited:

• His character represents a transactional, materialistic view of marriage, immediately contrasted with the King of France's response moments later

• He appears only briefly in Act 1, but his reaction functions as a clear moral test that Cordelia's other suitor passes and he fails

• His instant disinterest only underlines Cordelia's contrasting character and story to her sisters:

  • He represents the interests of ambition and power, much like her sisters, whilst Cordelia remains honest and true to herself and her morals

Sources

• Shakespeare, W. (1951) ‘King Lear’, in P. Alexander (ed.) The Complete Works of William Shakespeare: The Alexander Text. London: Collins [SME Digital Texts Library edition]