King Lear: Synopsis

Act 1  

The court assembles for a momentous announcement by the aging King Lear. He will decide to which of the suitors—the King of France or the Duke of Burgundy—he gives his youngest daughter, Cordelia, in marriage. He will also make a division of his kingdom among all three of his daughters before he retires from affairs of state. But first, each daughter must pass a love-test. Goneril and Regan speak eloquently of the boundlessness of their love and are each given a third of the kingdom. Cordelia weighs up her love for her father against that for her future husband and holds them equal. This brings on her father’s rage. He disowns her outright.  

A courtier loyal to the old king, Kent, speaks up for Cordelia and is banished from the kingdom. Burgundy declines to marry Cordelia on discovering that she has no dowry. France, by contrast, sees in Cordelia’s stance her integrity; he invites her to be his wife, which she accepts. Goneril and Regan have each been given half the kingdom. They openly refute Cordelia’s charge that they have been dishonest; privately they worry at having to care for an old king under the conditions Lear imposes: a month in each of their households, along with one hundred of his followers.  

We know Edmund to be the illegitimate son of Gloucester—as such had he been introduced to Kent at the beginning of the play. But now Edmund privately rails against the stigma that attaches to ‘bastards’ and he determines to lay his hands on the property to which his older half-brother, Edgar, alone is entitled. He sets his plan in motion by persuading his father of Edgar’s murderous intent and Edgar of his father’s unfathomable wrath.  

Goneril is provoked to take action against Lear and his followers. They are out of control. She invites her steward, Oswald, to disregard her father’s needs. This Lear notices at once. He seeks to punish Oswald for insubordination. He is helped in this by a straight-talking ‘man’ for hire—Kent in disguise as ‘Caius’—who afflicts Oswald with violence. Lear rewards ‘Caius’ for this show of loyalty.  

The Fool mocks Lear for giving away his kingdom—humorous wordplay gives him the means to take risks with Lear that others cannot. Goneril now confronts her father with the unruliness of his followers. She threatens to reduce their number to fifty, whereupon Lear storms out, determined to live with Regan. He places a curse on Goneril that would see her either sterile or the mother of a delinquent. Alone with the Fool, Lear regrets his treatment of Cordelia and feels madness coming on.   

Act 2 

Edmund persuades Edgar that, such is Gloucester’s wrath, Edgar’s life is in danger. Within earshot of their father, they let on to engage in a sword fight; then Edgar flees. Edmund wounds himself and shows it to Gloucester as Edgar’s attempt on his life. He is playing both sides, setting his father in pursuit of his brother while seeming to aid his brother’s escape. Edmund earns the gratitude of his father and the admiration of Cornwall. He becomes Cornwall’s favourite. Edgar, meanwhile, disguises himself as Poor Tom, a vagrant pursued by demons.  

Three parties convene at Gloucester’s castle: Regan and Cornwall; Goneril and Albany; and Lear and the Fool. (Kent, disguised as ‘Caius’, had gone on ahead of Lear and been placed in the stocks for ‘his’ further ill-treatment of Oswald.) The sisters agree to disband the followers and to impose harsh restrictions on Lear. Lear rails against this disloyalty and takes off for the wilderness, despite the storm that threatens.  

Act 3 

Lear is exposed to the storm but encourages its vehemence as it distracts him from his daughters’ ill-treatment of him. The Fool, Kent (disguised as Caius), and Gloucester stay with him. Their protestations to seek shelter go unheeded. Lear so fixates on his daughters’ perfidy that he prefers the storm’s clamour to the thoughts of their betrayals that scourge him. Nevertheless, a hovel is found. The Fool tries it out, only to discover Poor Tom within. Lear is lead away to a farmhouse on Gloucester’s lands. Here, Lear gives his attention to Poor Tom, whom he sees as the image of all humanity, and sidelines The Fool. The Fool removes himself from Lear’s company. Gloucester eventually sets Lear on to Dover to be reunited with Cordelia.  

Gloucester, fearing that Lear’s death is sought by Cornwall and Regan, determines to plead with them once more on Lear’s behalf. But Lear is now an enemy of the state and Gloucester is a traitor for having associated with him. He is punished by having both his eyes gouged out, in the course of which he learns that it was Edmund and not Edgar who had been acting against his interests all along. A servant in his household attempts to protect him, fatally wounding Cornwall before receiving his own death blow from Regan. Gloucester, blinded, is likewise abandoned to the wilderness. He miraculously gains Edgar disguised as Poor Tom as his guide. They make for Dover where Gloucester intends to take his own life.  

Act 4 

Cordelia prepares to lead French troops against her sisters’ British forces to restore her father to the throne. Edmund assembles the British forces and hatches a plan of action. Such is the contrast he strikes with Albany, Goneril sees in him someone whom to respect and love. No sooner does she make of Edmund her favourite than she finds in Regan, now a widow, a rival for his affections. Regan indeed has intentions towards Edmund—and in turn alerts Goneril of her plans to marry Edmund. The rivalry looks set to erupt into outright enmity.  

Edgar as Poor Tom induces blind Gloucester to believe that he stands on the cliffs of Dover; whereas, in reality, he is on level ground. He rewards Poor Tom with a jewel and seeks his removal; then he ‘jumps’. He awakens, shocked to be alive. He is ‘discovered’ by a peasant—Edgar assuming a new disguise. Gloucester decides to leave aside thoughts of death. Lear, crowned with weeds, happens upon them. Gloucester shows great deference to Lear who deems himself unworthy. Lear runs from those whom Cordelia has appointed with his care. Oswald then makes an attempt on Gloucester’s life, only to have his own taken by Edgar, disguised as a peasant. Edgar discovers on Oswald a letter that reveals the infidelity between Goneril and Edmund. Lear is reunited with Cordelia. At first he does not recognise her, then he is overcome with remorse. She reassures him of her undiminished love. 

Act 5 

Lear and Cordelia’s defeat by the British forces is decisive, but Lear chooses not to take it as a setback. He suggests that he and Cordelia find consolation in each other’s company, even when imprisoned. However, Edmund surreptitiously orders their deaths. He only seeks its reversal when he is defeated by Edgar in a trial by combat and admits, with his dying breaths, his plots to attach himself to either sister and gain the throne through one or other of them. Lear staggers on, with Cordelia in his arms. He refuses to believe that she is dead. Around him are the corpses of his other daughters: Regan has been poisoned by Goneril; Goneril has taken her own life. Lear dies believing that he sees Cordelia breathe. Edgar claims, Gloucester also having died, that at least the old are spared more pain. He further claims that the young—himself included—cannot know the scale of pain that the elderly have endured. 

This synopsis was written by Gate Theatre New Work Manager Thomas Conway.