What About Cordelia?

Cordelia is a puzzler. It’s easy to imagine her as the victim, and her forgiveness of her father in the latter half of the play, closely followed by her violent death, makes her seem martyr-like, or even Christlike. But look at it another way, and suddenly it’s Cordelia herself, with her obstinance and defiance in 1.1, who causes all the trouble in the play. If the first great character question in King Lear is “Why does Lear enact the love test?” the second question follows on its heels: “Why does Cordelia refuse to play?”

There’s another oddity about Cordelia’s behaviour, which R.A. Foakes points out in the introduction to the Arden Lear: “Once Lear is awakened, Cordelia addresses him only as king, not as father, and her aim is to restore him to a throne he keeps reminding her he no longer wants.” Why so formal? Has she truly forgiven him for his words and actions? And why does she want him back on the throne so badly? This is how she describes the French invasion:

O dear father,
It is thy business that I go about;
Therefore great France
My mourning and important tears hath pitied.
No blown ambition doth our arms incite,
But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right.

For Lear’s sake, she has convinced the King of France to lend her an army (and she’s in command of it, apparently, since France himself is nowhere to be seen). But what right does Lear have to rule in Britain? Didn’t he give up that right in 1.1? Is Cordelia trying to turn back time?

It reminds me of a similar case of denial in 5.3. After father and daughter have been captured by the British army, Lear famously fantasizes about the two of them living happily “like birds i’the cage.” Maybe these sorts of delusions are a family trait, something that Lear and Cordelia both share. In 1.1, Cordelia shatters Lear’s fantasy of a happy and harmonious family; and later, Lear returns the favour by ending Cordelia’s fantasy of leading an army and conquering Britain.

Once again, I don’t feel as though “delusions of grandeur” is really an adequate motivation for a character like Cordelia. But it’s more interesting than “martyr complex,” at the very least.