Loyalty and Disloyalty

Loyalty and disloyalty is a critical theme in Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear. Some of the characters are simply loyal or disloyal, and others show a false sense of loyalty or disloyalty. The play begins with a loyalty test to see which of Lear’s daughters loves him the most. It ends with the Earl of Kent dying because of his loyalty to King Lear. Throughout the play King Lear, the theme of loyalty and disloyalty appears in each of the five Acts.
During the play Lear’s daughters show a sense of loyalty and disloyalty. In Act One, scene one, Goneril and Regan give a false sense of loyalty to King Lear. They tell him, “I love you more than word can wield/ the matter” (I:i:57) and “In my true heart/ I find she names my very deed of love” (I:i:72-73). They tell the king that they love him, but they are really lying to him. They are not loyal to the Lear because he has divided the kingdom among them, and they do not feel that they need to be loyal to him anymore....