Edmund

Edmund

1. He is extraordinarily evil.

   • He is utterly unprincipled and totally amoral
     • His illegitimacy is no excuse for his evilness and villainy but it does, to an extent, influence our feelings towards him
       • Edmund displays some redeeming features in the final scene.
         • When he is unsuccessful in his ambitious designs, he accepts his failure without showing personal animosity
           • He exchanges forgiveness with Edgar and accepts that divine justice has been done:
             • "The wheel is come full circle"

2. He is a sharp- witted villain with the capacity to perceive the strengths and weaknesses of others and is plan his schemes accordingly

   • He is also entirely unscrupulous in the pursuit of his ambition to possess his father's lands
     • He ruthlessly exploits his father's credulous nature and his brother's noble- mindedness:
       • " A credulous father and a brother noble whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none"

3. His hypocrisy is evident when, speaking with Gloucester, he describes Goneril and Regan's treatment of Lear as "savage and unnatural"

   • He betrays his own father in the certain knowledge that Gloucester will be severely punished for his 'treason'
     • His hypocrisy is again evident in his apparent reluctance to inform Cornwall of Gloucester's intentions

4. KEY ADJECTIVES

   • ambitious, determined
     • clever, resourceful, quick- witted
     • humane
       • to some extent at the end of the play
   • false, deceptive, hypocritical, two- faced
     • ruthless, unscrupulous