Shakespeare has created a ton of masterpieces. King Lear is one of them. The story bases it self on honesty, and how far you are willing to go to get something, a piece of land in this case. The three daughters of King Lear are being given three bits of land, yet they aren’t the same size. There is one large, one medium and one small, so to decide which daughter gets the largest and beautiful piece of land, King Lear wants to finally find out who loves him the most. The natural reaction is to lie and say wonderful things that even the King should know is absolute rubbish, so two of them did, while one of the daughters decided to be honest and true. This essay is about my opinion on the matter, and who should get the land.

The first one to speak was Gonriel. She obviously was desperate to own the largest piece of land, and was prepared to lie continuously until she got it. What she said came across as very manipulative, which says a thing or two about her personality. She said things that obviously weren’t true like “I profess myself an enemy to all other joys”. No one would ever say that to anyone, as it is just petty. I think that once she got the land, she wouldn’t speak to the slowly dying King again. Another thing that helps my point is how she used a triplet to exaggerate her point. Even in those days, you could just say I love you on the spot, so it makes it look like she was planning to say that and you could easily identify a false comment by seeing a triplet of exaggerated words.

The next is Regan, who is at least a tiny bit more honest that Gonreil. Yet unlike her rival, she decides to not say much about herself, and instead put her rivals down such as ”Only she comes too short”. That makes her sound like a disastrously horrible person, yet King Lear doesn’t see it.She didn’t say much compared to Gonreil, yet what she said, in my opinion, was even more dishonest than Gonreil, yet what she said was in moderation, causing it to sound slightly more normal. What puzzled me was how on earth she thought that she could do better than both of the other sisters love wise, even though she brags just as badly as Gonreil, and used exhausting metaphors that even a deaf man could recognise it as false.

Cordelia was the last sister to speak, and the expression last but not least describes what she said. ”Nothing my lord”. Compared to what her sisters said, it was an honesty overload. Four words told King Lear how much she loved her, yet it came across a bit weird to her father and sisters. This tells me that she thinks that the land isn’t needed to make herself happy, and she wouldn’t risk getting caught lying for, in her views, a small prize. It proves she is a loving person, and unlike the other sisters, an incredibly honest person.

This was a very easy decision to make. It was obvious that the others were being dishonest so, if King Lear really understood, I think that Cordelia should get the largest piece of land.