Thursday, December 14, 2017

Where does Kent think Cordelia will be staying?

In act 3, scene 1 the unfailingly loyal Kent is desperately wandering the storm-tossed heath trying to find his ungrateful master, Lear. He comes across one of Lear's knights and gives him some highly secret information. There is a feud developing in the enemy camp between Albany and Cornwall. The French have sent troops and some of them have already landed on the coast. Kent wants the gentleman to hurry down to Dover as soon as possible and let everyone know just how abominably Lear is being treated. He gives the gentleman a ring to show to Cordelia, as he assumes that she is staying in Dover, having recently returned from exile.
After being banished for much of the play, Cordelia now takes on a role of increasing importance, even though we don't actually see her again until act 4, scene 4. She is bravely heading a French invasion force, leading the resistance against her father's usurpers. From now until the end of the play, she will become the main dramatic focus. She is, after all, providing the only serious challenge to the wanton cruelty of her sisters and their lackeys. Lear himself is unable to do this, a homeless king without a throne, wandering aimlessly over the windswept heath as his tortured mind disintegrates by the hour.

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