Dysfunctional Family

      Today in class one of my classmates (sorry I don't remember who it was) was asked to give a summary on King Lear.  She summed it up as a crazy story about crazy people. I don't disagree but I feel it's more than that. We read King Lear in my Intro to Lit class and it was chosen for very different reasons. So far everything we have read in that class has revolved around extremely dysfunctional families. And King Lear has a very dysfunctional family. First of all, there is no Mrs. Lear. We don't know whether she just has nothing to say or if she died or something else. She just isn't present. This leaves a single father of three daughters. For ten years, my family was my mom, my dad, me and my two sisters. While I love my dad and everything he does for us there are just some things he just can't help us with. A mother is very important for growing daughters. I feel that we see a bit of Lear's insecurity with how to raise his daughters from the scene in the very beginning. He thinks that the only way to find out how much his daughters love him is to basically make it a competition. Now, some girls are very competitive but for the most part girls tend not to be. Clearly, Lear does not understand this. So when Cordelia refuse to play along with her more competitive sisters and tells him she loves him as a father, no more, no less, Lear kind of freaks. He doesn't understand why she wouldn't just follow along and flatter him like her sisters.
       Part of me also feels like he doesn't really know how to raise children in general. We're talking about a time when children were raised by their mothers and, in the case of royalty, probably some servants. More than likely Lear has no idea how to be a parent. First of all, what kind of father makes his children lie to him to make him give them a good portion of land. Why not just divide it evenly and be done with it? Or if that is to much to handle, pick an heir? He might have a nephew or something to leave the kingdom to. And what kind of father banishes his daughter for speaking the truth instead of flattering him with willowy lies? He strikes me as a terrible father.

     Then there's Gloucester's family. He has his legitimate son, Edgar, who's not much of a looker and his bastard son, Edmund, who is basically a hunk. Now Gloucester is a lovable fool really and you'd think that no one could possibly hate him...if you skipped the beginning of the play. He blatantly makes fun of how Edmund came to be saying it "was good sport at hi making" right in front of him! Now I feel like there aren't any hard feelings coming from Edgar until after Edmund screws him but Edmund certainly has many reasons to hate his father. He was hidden from existence until Gloucester decided it wasn't that big a deal if everyone knew he had screwed around behind his (also "missing") wife's back. Then to have his father make fun of him to another noble in front of him? Clearly Gloucester isn't father of the year either.