Beginning of Essay
Why bastard wherefore base?" asks Edmund. The bitter illegitimate son resents his father and brother. He is determined to "prosper" and "grow." Ruthlessly, he plays on old Gloucester's weakness and persuades him that Edgar seeks his death to obtain his inheritance ....

Middle of Essay
.... intertwined the two plots, beginning in Act II at Gloucester's castle and ending in the alliance of Edgar and Albany, that is is difficult to separate them. Gloucester, like Lear, suffers from filial ingratitude. It is in his castle that Lear is humiliated by his daughters and flees into the storm. Gloucester's sympathy helps Lear to Dover to meet Cordelia, yet leads to his own blindness and his going to Dover for suicide. Edgar becomes embroiled in the main plot when, disguised as a madman, he meets Lear on the heath. His destruction of Oswald, Goneril's steward and his defeat of Edmund in the duel leading to Edmund admitting he has giv ....