It's notable that in the various parent-child relationships presented in King Lear, it's the children who display greater maturity than their parents. The most obvious example, of course, would be Lear's daughters. Regan and Goneril understand immediately the full import of their father's foolish decision to divide his kingdom between them and their sister Cordelia. They know that as soon as Lear gives up his kingdom, his power and authority will start draining away.
For her part, Cordelia shows a rather different kind of maturity. In refusing to make a public profession of love for her father, she's effectively telling everyone that she'll have nothing to do with such a silly, childish charade. No longer daddy's little girl, Cordelia is now very much a woman in her own right.
Then there is the immaturity of Gloucester, so easily seduced by the lies and deceit of Edmund, who expertly turns him against his legitimate son, Edgar. As with Lear, Gloucester is so childishly insecure that he desperately needs to feel the love, and Edmund is only too willing, for purely ulterior motives, to make him feel it—just as Regan and Goneril professed their love for Lear to get their greedy hands on his kingdom.
King Lear and his daughters are, of course, a completely dysfunctional family. Lear himself (at the play's beginning) is a narcissist who demands submission and utter devotion to him alone as evidence of his children's love. But he is so self-involved he doesn't recognize he's raised two sociopaths in his older daughters, Regan and Goneril ("the pelican daughters," so-called because the Elizabethans believed that pelican chicks fed off blood drawn from the chests of their parents) until it's far too late. These two lie through their teeth to get what they want from him—parts of his kingdom and the power that goes with it. On whom did they model this behavior? Without doubt, their father.
Cordelia, on the other hand, while genuinely loving her father, refuses to say she will love only him, and is reviled for it. It's only when she and Lear (now dethroned, crazed and at the end of his life) are reunited at the end of the play that he recognizes her worth: again, too late.
The theme of parent-child relations is so important to the meaning of King Lear that one could write a book about it. To name the heart of it, though, Lear shows that he misunderstands the way in which a daughter's love to her father should /must be expressed, and fundamentally misjudges Regan and Goneril, taking their flattery at face value. However, if he misjudges those two, his judgment of Cordelia is something close to a crime. He so underestimates her love that he blasts her in the opening act.
The rest of the play then dramatizes what happens when these relationships go bad, with Cordelia embodying what a daughter should be and do for her father.
What are the parent/child relationships in King Lear?
The various parent/child relationships in King Lear are fraught,...
See This Answer Now
Start your 48-hour free trial to unlock this answer and thousands more. Enjoy eNotes ad-free and cancel anytime.
Already a member? Log in here.
to say the least. Most notably, there's the dysfunctional relationship between Lear and his daughters. He makes the foolish mistake of stepping down as king, dividing his kingdom between Regan, Cordelia, and Goneril. To make matters worse, he disowns Cordelia—the only daughter who really loves him—because she refuses to play ball with Lear's charade and make a public declaration of love for him. Regan and Goneril have no such qualms about professing their love for their father, but that's only because they don't actually mean what they say, and are desperate to get their hands on Lear's kingdom.
Though Lear can rightly be criticized for his foolish actions, in some ways he's a victim of established convention. For relationships between royal family members is based on power as much of love—perhaps even more so—and so it's difficult to separate the two. Lear's daughters are not just family members; they're his subjects, and so he feels entitled to a public show of affection from each of them as a sign of their undying loyalty. When push comes to shove, power trumps love in the ruling household. Regan and Goneril understand that, which is why—ironically—they have no hesitation in proclaiming their love. With Cordelia, it's the exact opposite.
Gloucester's relationship with his sons parallels that of Lear with his daughters. And once again, power complicates what would otherwise be a loving relationship. The overriding importance of power among the nobility blinds Gloucester to the harsh realities of his family dynamics. He fails to realize that it is Edgar, not the hateful Edmund, who really loves him. As relations between fathers and their children in noble families are based more on power than love, this makes it all too easy for those who crave power, those who know how to play the power game, to exploit love cynically for their own devious ends. And this is precisely what Edmund does, following a parallel course to Lear's errant daughters.
What are the parent/child relationships in King Lear?
The major characters involved in parent/child relationships are King Lear and his three daughters, Regan, Goneril, and Cordelia (the true one), and then Gloucester and his two sons, Edgar, the legitimate son and Edmund, the illegitimate son.
For more information on how these relationships intertwine and unfold, please see the attached links from eNotes. They are quite informative.
Hope that helps get you started!