Coppelia kahn essay the absent mother in king lear

The lives of many of the other characters, not just the children’s, are badly affected because of the absent mother. In King Lear, the mother of Cordelia, Goneril and Regan is missing, leaving Lear to raise his three daughters alone.

Lear’s bias towards Cordelia is probably what leads to Regan’s and Goneril’s character flaws. Myra Glazer Schotz states, “focusing on the ‘masculine predicament of kingship and fatherhood,’ the Lear world presents us with daughters but predicates itself on the absence of their mother, the absence of a Queen,...

Although Goneril and Regan are both deceitful children who abuse their power, a mother could have prevented them from causing their own deaths and the unnecessary deaths of Lear, Gloucester and many others. However, because there is no mother, the events that take place are bound to happen.

Although the Kent and the Fool are there to counteract Lear’s authority, they do not as much influence his wife would. Kent advises against Cordelia’s banishment but is then himself banished. Lear’s wife, the mother of his daughters, is probably the only one who could have prevented Cordelia’s banishment.