Rachel Horton ENG 4336

Evil or Misunderstood: Edmund in King Lear

The role of Edmund in Shakespeare’s King Lear is simultaneously minor yet pivotal in the play as a whole. The main plot discusses Lear and his struggle to maintain both his kingdom and his family. In this respect, Edmund means very little in the grand scheme of things and serves primarily as a sub-plot character who mirrors the main plot. Yet Shakespeare moves him fairly quickly into a person of influence in the play and in the conclusion, Edmund’s actions directly impact the final tragic ending.

As a bastard child, Edmund has little to look forward to from family or society. Edmund, therefore, has an unequivocal desire to “get ahead in the world, and, since he has little charity, his quickest and most direct method is to supplant his brother” (Ellis 277). This desire leads to a

“swift deception” (Ellis 275) of both Gloucester and Edgar and results in an “inversion of order”

(Ellis 289). As a bastard son in a restrictive and hyper-ordered society, Edmund is determined to

“strike off all shackles that might inhibit the free play of his energies. He therefore denies the inherited medieval standards of Elizabethan society” (Delany 431) and attempts to push himself forward in a manner that is indicative of a “political ruthlessness” which espouses a “strict and often brutal functionalism in social life” (Delany 433) He flippantly brushes aside the individual's obligations to society as no more than "the plague of custom" (I.ii.3) and calls upon

Nature to “stand up for bastards” (I.ii.10). His bitterness and ambition may be justifiable, but his character is too hard to earn the sympathy of the audience.

Edmund’s original goal to supplant his brother and overthrow his father is a “limited objective” but later, when events play into his hands, “he widens his ambitions to include his father’s title and then the crown” (Matthews 27). McNeir describes Edmund as an “opportunist like Iago” and implies that Edmund simply wants to see the world fall apart through any means Rachel Horton ENG 4336 possible. The end of the play, however, does not necessarily justify such an extreme comparison.

Edmund does have the opportunity to rethink his actions. Unlike Iago, who never displays any regret for the mayhem he causes in Othello, Edmund seems to display some sympathy in the end.

After his bout with Edgar, Edmund attempts to take back his original orders for the murder of

Cordelia and Lear. Yet, Edmund never arrives at the point of recognizing his own personal failures and Lear and Cordelia’s deaths are ultimately caused not “by fate or accident, but by the evil character of Edmund” (McNeir 214) for like Hamlet, his hesitation causes tragedy. In the end he is still weak, still entirely self-absorbed, and “he reverts to the demonic sisters before heeding the dictates of his new born conscience” (McNeir 187). Had Edmund received compassion or sympathy from his father or society, perhaps his end would have been less tragic.

Yet even in the end, when he has the power to make a difference, Edmund still vacillates and it is in this that Edmund’s evil exists (Mathews 28).

Rachel Horton ENG 4336

Works Cited

Ellis, John. “The Gulling of Gloucester: Credibility in the Subplot of King Lear.” Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900, 12.2 (1972). 275-89. .

Delaney, Paul. “King Lear and the Decline of Feudalism,” Publications of the Modern Language Association, 92.3 (1977). 429-40. .

Mathews, Richard. “Edmund's Redemption in King Lear.” Shakespeare Quarterly. 26.1 (1975) 25-29. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/2869263>.

McNeir, Waldo F. “The Role of Edmund in King Lear.” Studies in English Literature, 1500- 1900, 8.2 (1968). 187-216. < http://www.jstor.org/stable/449655>.