Regan The embodiment of an atavistic barbarity and savagery. She is nature gone “vilde”. C Quinn CQuinn; Grind Notes;Margaret Ellen Clerkin

Regan Aberrant, Utterly Contemptible, devoid of humanity, callous, competitive, malevolent, competitive, Sadistic, Sangfroid (cold-blooded self-possession in the face of evil atrocities- e.g. blinding of Gloucester and the stocking of Kent) Like her sister, she makes mellifluent declarations of love to her father but these are fulsome declarations delineating her as an oleaginous sycophant C Quinn

“I am made of that self metal as my sister, and prize me at her worth “I am made of that self metal as my sister, and prize me at her worth. In my true heart I find that she names my very deed of love only she comes too short” Delineates the competitive side to this more insubordinate character- Regan conforms to a Hobbesian view of humanity- man is utterly bad and selfish) In her nature is “vilde” or out of control. She is the embodiment of an atavistic barbarity and savagery- Evil in her has no limits C Quinn

Regan’s derision of Lear Regan denigrates her father in the following quotations: “I pray you, father, being weak, seem so” “O, sir you are old, nature in you stands on the verge of her confine” “O, sir, to wilful men the injuries they themselves procure must be their schoolmasters” She refers to him as the “lunatic king” C Quinn

”One eye will mock the another, the other too” Takes a sadistic delight schadenfreude (the misfortunes of others). For example, she is not satisfied with Gloucester only losing one eye, she savagely demands ”One eye will mock the another, the other too” “It was great ignorance Gloucester’s eyes being out to let him live” She demands the Kent remain in the stocks “all night too” C Quinn

She urges Gloucester to “smell his way to Dover” She promises a great reward to Oswald if he will kill Gloucester “Preferment falls on him that cuts him off” What can Regan possibly gain from the death of an old blind man? Her desire for Gloucester’s death is indicative of her moral depravity. She makes Edmund her “lord and master” but it is the poetic justice of the play that Edmund is indifferent to her and her sister: “Which of them shall I take? Both? One? Or neither?” She dies merciless at the hands of her vindictive sister Goneril C Quinn