The subplot of King Lear

Role and function the Gloucester subplot in King Lear
In King Lear we discover the presence of two parallel plots: Gloucester story intensifies our experience of the central action by supplying sequence of parallel, impressed upon us by frequent commentary by the characters themselves. The sub-plot simplifies the central action of Lear and his daughters, translating its verbal and visual patterns. it also pictorializes the main action, supplying interpreted visual emblems for some of the play’s important themes. The clarity of the subplot and its didacticism are related, furthermore, to the old fashioned literary form like the morality play, but the verbal and visual simplifications of sub-plot do not simply provide a contrast with what goes on elsewhere in the play; they help to reveal the nature of Lear’s experience by being so obviously inadequate to it. Lear’s sufferings are heroic because they cannot be accommodated by traditional formulas, moral or literary and thee sub-plot exists partly to establish that fact.
The simplification of the sub-plot can be seen first of all in its method of defining character. The behaviour of Edmund, the bastard, for example, is more comprehensible than that of Lear’s bad daughters. The contrast is between Edmund’s conventionally explicable villainy and the seemingly incomprehensible evil Goneril and Regan. The two daughters, who have been given “All”, must remain the subject of unanswered question about what in nature breeds such “hard-hearts”. Elizabethans believed that illegitimacy of birth was itself a cause evil. Lear attempts to explain his daughters’ nature on the grounds of their bastardy, which like Edmund signifies a lack of kinship with Lear’s goodness that is reflected also in Cordelia. Thus Kent says:
“The stars above us, govern our conditions;
Else oneself mate and make could not beget,
Such different issues.” (Act IV, sc. iii)
Again the sub-plot often provides emblem or pictures with clearly stated meanings. The appearance of Edgar on the heath as a poor and naked Bedlam beggar supplies the physical actuality of poverty and nakedness that preoccupy Lear, stripped off his retinue and position:
“Is man no more than this?
Consider him well.”
In Lear’s remarks such as this Edgar is projected as a subject for meditation and consequently of his own poverty. Gloucester’s entrance with the torch immediately afterwards inspires the Fool to similar emblematic imagination on a different subject:
“Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart.”
The association of fire to heart’s lechery is, in fact, emblematic and points to the root of moral chaos not only in Gloucester’s life but also in the world of Lear’s daughters. Such emblems in the sub-plot portray the obsessive moral imagination of the character who creates them but at the same time they provide physical analogue for some of the play’s important themes—nakedness, sexual appetite and injustice.
Lear’s mad visions differ substantively and in a contrasted form from Edgar’s ‘lunacy’ in the sub-plot, as well as from Gloucester’s sanity. Contrary to the formal structure of Edgar’s references to animals’ lechery Lear’s hypothetical statement of animal’s coupling do not merely satirise the sin of adultery. They are animated sources of his visions:
“Thou shalt not die: die for adultery! No.
The wren goes to’t, and the small gilded fly
Does lecher in my sight.” (Act IV, sc. vi)
Gloucester’s most striking simile about his sufferings,
“As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,
They kill us for their sport.” (Act IV, sc i) offers another kind of contrast with Lear’s mad language. Gloucester’s figure of speech sets up an exact proportion between the terms of comparison, that is, between himself and the gods. Lear’s language does the opposite, stressing the personal motivation behind each generalisation and therefore, exceed the limits of conventional figure of speech.
The thematic function of the sub-plot becomes most explicit perhaps in the scene in which we witness Gloucester’s abortive leap from the cliff. Levin has observed that Gloucester’s fall suggests the fall of man or the kind of the fall even may be seen as a rendering of “fortunate fall”, the Christian paradox, whereby man’s Original Fall was interpreted as happy because it enabled him to receive more grace and be redeemed. Gloucester’s attempt to kill himself is deflected by Edgar. Gloucester’s fall is interpreted by Edgar as miraculous:
“Thy life’s a miracle.” (Act IV, sc. vi)
At the end of the play we see how Edgar, who exhorted his blind father to look after his fall is unable to change anything in case of a king. Lear’s sufferings outweigh any optimistic or encouraging words, whether Edgar’s or Albany’s, and they are told by Kent that pain should be allowed in death. Lear’s experience cannot be accounted for in the way that of Gloucester’s is. He is more sinned against than sinning; he and Cordelia are those “who with best meaning have incurr’d the worst”. (Act V, sc iii).

Importance of the subplot in King Lear

"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. Edgar, being told that Gloucester seeks his life for some reason, flees. With Edgar thus removed, Edmund now seeks to destroy his father and reports his alleged "treason" to Cornwall who removes the old man's eyes. The bastard has travelled far and is now Earl of Gloucester. Sought in love by both Goneril and Regan, victorious in battle over Cordelia's forces, Edmund's future seems assured. Alas, the discovery of Goneril's letter urging Edmund to kill her husband Albany leads to his arrest. Edgar in disguise fights Edmund, who is defending his honour and is mortally wounded - "the wheel has come full circle". Gloucester, realising the wrong he has done to Edgar, yet joyful he is alive, dies. Edgar joins Albany in ruling the country.

So skillfully has Shakespeare 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 given secret orders for the execution of Lear and Cordelia, together with his alliance with Albany, all relate him to the main plot.

However, it is - appropriately enough - the corrupt Edmund who becomes most entangled with the main plot. Ambition drives him into Cornwall's hands, and to his double involvement with Goneril and Regan. His cruelty to his father rivals that of the sisters as does his hate for his brother and theirs of Cordelia. Most significant of all, it is Edmund who has Cordelia killed and who, indirectly, causes Lear's death. It is Edmund who causes the deaths of Goneril and Regan, and indirectly, his own father. He is the evil link between the two plots, a prime mover in the subplot and a catalyst in the main.

The Subplot in King Lear
The subplot of Gloucester, Edmund, and Edgar in King Lear serves three primary functions. The main plot is the betrayal of King Lear by his two elder daughters Goneril and Regan, to whom he abdicates his power in the play’s first scene. The subplot is the similar story of the betrayal of the Earl of Gloucester by his illegitimate son Edmund. In both cases, the other victim of the malevolent children is the one child who was truly faithful to the father: Cordelia in the case of the king and Edgar in the case of Gloucester. Both betrayals occur because the fathers foolishly believe their sinister children who trick them into believing that their good-hearted siblings are the villains.
The first function of the subplot in King Lear is to resonate with the main plot. It reinforces the theme that fathers should be wary of children who flatter them too much and try to convince them that their other children are plotting against them. The second function of this particular subplot is to contradict the main story’s resolution. Because the main plot is a tragedy and ends on a very negative note (with King Lear dead and Cordelia murdered at the order of her old sisters), it is necessary for the subplot to end on a positive note. The provides an important release of tension and the emotional satisfaction that at least some injustices are resolved. For this reason, Edmund is killed at the end and Edgar is restored to power and is reconciled with his father, who dies in his arms. The third function this subplot has is as a complication to the main plot. Gloucester, Edgar, and Edmund are all important characters within the main plot. Regan and Goneril both try to gain favor and marry Edmund when he is unjustly made Earl of Gloucester which is ultimately their undoing. Regan’s husband is murdered by his own guards for gouging out Gloucester’s eyes, and Goneril’s husband turns against the two sisters when he learns of their fancies after Edmund and of their conniving. The two stories are tightly woven together and give the play an energetic rhythm by alternating when they climax and develop. They also intensify and validate each other’s themes in order to give the play a solid, dramatic thrust.