What are some similarities and differences between King Lear and Gloucester in King Lear?

The story of Gloucester and his two sons runs in parallel to the main story of Lear and his three daughters: essentially, the Gloucester story is a B-plot which helps to further illuminate the A-plot. This is a structure currently found today in everything from movies to episodic television, and it works for Shakespeare, too. Because the stories are analogous, the similarities and differences between them make us think more closely about what has gone wrong.

Lear is a very elderly man, and he is convinced that it is his "pelican daughters" who are entirely at fault for their betrayal of him. However, he is also beginning to suffer from senility, which develops throughout the play, and he is very susceptible to flattery. Because he does not know his children well, he expects that his favorite daughter, Cordelia, will tell him what he wants to hear. But he does not realize how strong her moral backbone is, much as he does not realize that if he gives power willingly to his other daughters, Regan and Goneril, they will not, in fact, look after him, but will oust him into the rain and cold without a care.

Gloucester, too, struggles to recognize the true moral characters of his sons. He does not realize that the way he has treated Edmund, his illegitimate son, has caused Edmund to become manipulative and resentful. He also has such little understanding of his first born, Edgar, that he is taken in by Edmund's machinations and willingly disinherits his own favored child.

At the end of the play, the "good" children, Edgar and Cordelia, both prove that they never did betray their fathers, but in each case it is too late. Their fathers' lack of knowledge or trust in their own children has caused their demise. Although in Lear's case, he willingly gives his power away, whereas in Gloucester's case, his son Edmund initiates the power grab, their stories are very alike.

Here are some basic similarities and differences to jump start you into a more detailed character analysis of each.

Similarities:

• Both have children whose love and loyalty are in question.
• Both fail to see, at the play's outset, which child is true and loyal and which is disloyal and false.
• Both are old men who, rather than enjoy the status and ease of their age and rank, are turned out into the wild and harsh elements to make their way in the world.
• Both Lear and Gloucester are reduced to despair about life and their situations.

Differences:

• Though they both are reduced to despair, Lear's desire to escape from reality manifests as madness, Gloucester's as thoughts of suicide.
• Gloucester's true/loyal son, Edgar, is able to assist his father through much of the events of the play, Lear's true/loyal daughter, Cordelia, arrives at the end and is not able to save Lear.
• Gloucester is literally blinded in the play, while Lear's blindness is figurative.

I hope that these general comparisons help you hone in on the details that you need!

King Lear and Gloucester are both old men who have been betrayed and cast out into the cold by their own children. In Lear's case it was his two daughters Goneril and Regan who treated him so cruelly that he preferred to become a homeless vagabond to being under obligation to them. In Gloucester's case, he was betrayed by his illegitimate son Edmund and believed erroneously that his legitimate son Edgar had been planning to dispossess him. Both Lear and Gloucester loved their children and feel heartbroken that they have been pitilessly repaid with contempt and scorn after all the years they had treated their children with loving kindness and had given them everything. Shakespeare is dramatizing a common human tragedy. Many parents find themselves unwanted and despised by their grown children who consider their elders a burden and a nuisance. In Measure for Measure, Shakespeare says:

Friend hast thou none,

For thine own bowels, which do call thee sire,

The mere effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo, and the rheum,

For ending thee no sooner.

How does King Lear mirror the character of Gloucester?

King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester are similar in numerous ways. They both fall from high positions in old age and bewail their fate. They both have children who betray them and other children whose loyalty they fail to appreciate. They both, in true Aristotelian fashion, come to know themselves and the world better through suffering. Finally, and perhaps least frequently noted, they are both largely the authors of their own misfortune through their cruel, arrogant treatment of the children who are at least partially justified in abandoning them.

This last point is emphasized at the very beginning of the play by the juxtaposition of Gloucester's mistreatment of Edmund with Lear's grotesque behavior towards all his daughters. Kent politely notices Edmund's existence, whereupon Gloucester says that he has "often blushed to acknowledge" his illegitimate son. He then crudely jokes about Edmund's mother and brusquely concludes:

He hath been out nine years, and away he shall again.

At this point, King Lear enters and immediately demands that his daughters make a humiliating parade of their filial affection—which he, like Gloucester, has done nothing to earn. In the course of the scene, he makes it clear that he prefers Cordelia to her elder sisters, then throws an undignified temper tantrum when his favorite daughter refuses to participate in his charade. It can be said of both men, as the fool says of Lear, that they should not have been old until they had been wise. What is worse, perhaps, is that at the beginning of the play, Lear and Gloucester have both grown old without learning either courtesy or kindness.

When two characters mirror each other, those characters are called foils of each other. The purpose of a foil is to emphasize certain characteristics.

Lear and Gloucester foil each other in a few ways. First, their families are nearly identical.

The issue of blindness also makes the characters foils of each other. Gloucester is blind to the truth while Lear becomes literally blind in the end of the play.

It can also be argued that both characters are defeatists, but you would have to find evidence for that.

Lear and Gloucester are both fathers in prominent positions whose demise is brought about because of 1) trusting the wrong children and 2) allowing extremes to govern their emotions. Lear angrily banishes Cordelia, the one daughter that truly loves him, because she will not flatter him. Gloucester readily believes Edmund's slander against Edgar, exiling Edgar for supposedly seeking the life of his brother. Both men suffer the consequences of their poor decisions, as well. Gloucester's eyes are plucked out, symbolizing his blindness to the truth. Lear slowly loses his mind after being put out by his daughters. In the end, both Lear and Gloucester realize their mistakes and seek to set things right. Unfortunately, the damage already done leads to Lear and Gloucester both dying. Gloucester dies from the extreme joy and grief he feels when he is reunited with Edgar. Lear dies over Cordelia's corpse, heartbroken at her death.

How do King Lear and Gloucester's plots, characters, and experiences differ in the play?

Although King Lear and the Earl of Gloucester are different characters, Gloucester's plight connects and parallels the main plot. Gloucester's children are boys, not girls as in Lear's case. Gloucester seems slower-witted than Lear. Some critics argue that in early scenes he is evidently a very foolish, gullible man. Others see evidence of pride or arrogance in his personality and emphasize his sensuality But both men condemn the good child and reward the child who intends evil. And like Lear, Gloucester is to be punished for his lack of insight or moral vision. However, the subplot is much more than a repetition of the principal story. It reinforces the central themes of the play, including the ingratitude of children, disorder in the family,spiritual development and rebirth. Although Lear is not blinded physically, but Gloucester is. But Gloucester's physical blindness corresponds to Lear's moral blindness. His attempted suicide is similar to Lear's own fall from grace. Many see the suicide attempt as Gloucester's final step toward spiritual renewal. Gloucester's suffers from despair but Lear actually goes mad. Both circumstances allow the two old men to evade one of the realities of aging. At some point, parents need to depend on their adult children. However, Gloucester and Lear eventually accept the necessity of that dependence.

Who is the character Gloucester in King Lear?

In Shakespeare's King Lear, the Earl of Gloucester is a loyal friend to Lear. He provides a counterpoint to Lear, in that his problems with his two sons—Edgar (Lear's godson) and a bastard son, Edmund—parallel the problems that Lear has with his daughters Goneril, Regan, and Cordelia.

Gloucester and Lear both reject and abandon a child who loves them in deference to children who profess their love but actually despise their fathers and intend to destroy them.

Lear denounces Cordelia because he believes she doesn't love him as much as her sisters love him. Lear puts his kingdom and his care into the hands of Goneril and Regan, who lock him out of their homes and force him to wander helplessly though his own kingdom.

Gloucester believes that Edgar has rebelled against him and is plotting against his life, and he puts his trust in Edmund, who does everything he can to destroy Gloucester.

Gloucester and Lear's parallel stories intersect when Lear's daughter Regan helps her husband, Cornwall, strip Gloucester of his responsibilities. With Regan watching, Gloucester is blinded, then thrown out of his castle. Gloucester calls on Edmund to help him, but Regan tells Gloucester that it was Edmund who betrayed him to them.

Gloucester dies in shock and joy at being reconciled with Edgar. Reconciled with Cordelia, Lear dies in grief after she is hanged on Edmund's order.