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Parental Ineptitude

1. Cornwall

   • Cornwall's speed at accepting Endmund into his family indicates his gullible personality
     • Edmund's filial pity leads Cornwall to state the plotter's loyalty: "Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father / A child-like office" (2.1.105-106).
     • Cornwall "seizes" on the opportunity to embrace Edmund's pretended loyalty: "[You] shall be ours" (2.1.114).
       • Cornwall desires, in a move that accentuates the childless of his own marriage.
         • It is possibly his own lack of son that blinds him to Edmund's duplicity and leads him to acclaim Edmund as his stepson: "I will lay my trust upon the; and thou shalt find a dearer father in love" (3.5.23-24).
           • Cornwall believes that Edgar behaves the way he does because of Gloucester, which is to say that fault is hereditary, the "badness" passed on from father to son.
             • What escapes Cornwall is the cause he seems to recognize could be equally applicable to the son he is so anxious to claim for his own (Edmund).
       • Edmund's ability to disguise his anger in a deceiving matter makes Cornwall an easy target
         • Cornwall's willingness to foster Edmund is motivated by a misplace sense of loyalty.

2. Lear

   • Lear proves himself guilty of favouritism when he advises that he will "express [his] darker purpose" (1.1.35).
     • This purpose is to grant Cordelia a portion of the kingdom "more opulent than [her sisters]" (1.1.85)>
   • Lear's partnership with Cordelia creates jealousy from which his two other daughters, Regan and Goneril, suffer.
   • Regan comments on Lear's avoidance oh his daughters' expectations when in answer to Lears statement "I gave you all" (2.4.247) she replies, "And in good time you gave it" (2.4.248).

3. Gloucester

   • Gloucester has spent his life denying Edmund's existence.
     • Gloucester admits that he has so often blush'd to acknowledge him, that now [he is] / brazed to it? (1.1.9-10).
       • This willingness to disown his paternity could explain his lack of knowledge of Edmund's character.
         • Edmund's nine-year absence from England, might explain why he does not know his son.
         • This becomes evident when Gloucester is confronted with the letter that supposedly comes from Edgar.
           • Gloucester shows a significant amount of ignorance concerning his legitimate son when he seeks Edmund's confirmation as to Edgar's handwriting: "You know this character to be your brother's" (1.2.59), he asks.
             • Gloucester's need to accept the word of a person who has little contact with Edgar or himself during the previous nine years shows the true extent of the little knowledge he has of his family.
               • This lack of concern, a paternal failure that parallels Lear's, is one of the causes of Edmund's rage.

4. Both Cornwall and Gloucester's willingness to accept Edmund confirms their parental ineptitude.

   • A feature that they share with Lear.