lol, it really depends on what interpretation of events you take - for example, a feminists one paragraph summation of Lear would be vastly different to a Marxists or that of a Jacobean audience.
...but about rnitya_25's post...is Cordelia really the "good" daughter? i mean, think about it properly. Goneril and Regan arent surprised at all by Lear's insane request to use his daughter's statements of how much they love him as the basis on which to divide his kingdom, so obviously this is not unusual behaviour. Therefore, Cordelia must know what he's like too. We know that Cordelia was Lear's favourite and had reserved "a third more opulent" for her but that he throws a compete fit when she wont pander to his wishes (even though she says she loves him) and banishes her - obviously if this was her normal behaviour she could never have been his favourite could she? so, for some unknown reason, Cordelia decides to use her position as Lear's favourite to get what we assume she wants (the land) without having to do what Lear asks.
Although people often say how unreasonable Lear's request is, not many people seem to stop and ask whether Cordelia's refusal is reaosnable or not. After all, few of Shakespeare's other heroines would have had a problem with being able to express their love of Lear to satisfy his longing for verbal affirmation of her feelings whilst not trying to compete with her sisters with an obviously staged and exaggerated speech like theirs (think of Desdemona (Othello) for example). Cordelia's behaviour is obviously not consistent with what it has been in the past, therefore are we right in blindly classing Cordelia as "good" and "noble" when her motivations are so unclear? anyway, just a thought.
