King Lear Final Words

In the last scene of King Lear, most of the characters meet their doom, but in their last words they each face death differently. As soon as Regan makes her plans for marriage to Edmund known, she submits everything to her supposed husband to be. “General take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony; dispose of them, of me; the walls are thine. Witness the world that I create thee here My lord and master” (V.III.85-89). After this, Regan repeats the same idea again and complains of her sickness and then dies. Right up to her last few lines we see her natural submission to others. Earlier in the play that was Goneril, but near her end it becomes Edmund. Goneril’s last words are “ask me not what I know” (V.III.194). She wishes to control everything in her life. She does not want to admit her faults, but wants to keep them to herself. She is stubbornly unrepentant and does forces her sister to follow her by poisoning her. If she cannot have her way in a positive manner, she would rather destroy herself and others than submit. Edmund is far different. In this final scene, he has a rapid transformation from one of the worst characters to a respectable person trying to make amends for his faults. He is extremely open and repentant when he says, “What you have charged me with, that have I done, and more, much more” (V.III.196-198). At the end of his life he even broadly admits to faults of which other are clueless. Edmund also spends his last words in lines 302 to 305 to try to save Lear and Cordelia. Rather than a glorious final phrase before death, he commits himself to others benefit for a change. Lear spends his last words lamenting over the death of Cordelia and wondering at her “lips.” This seems rather appropriate because her truthful lips were the most precious part of her. In his last moments Lear has truly realized that Cordelia should have been the prime object of his blessing.