1. Goneril
Obsequious Sycophant: “I love you more than words can wield the matter”
Grandiose but meretricious declarations of love to her father:
“Dearer than eye-sight, space, and liberty; Beyond what can be valued, rich or rare; No less than life, with grace, health, beauty, honour;
C Quinn
C Quinn: Grind Notes -Margaret Ellen Clerkin

2. Incendiary instigator: “Pray you, let us hit together”
“We must do something, and i’ the heat”
“I write straight to my sister to hold my very course”
Competitive, Debauch, Domineering, Lascivious, Malevolent, Unscrupulous, the epitome of an atavistic barbarity
Machiavellian pragmatist:
“Combine together ‘gainst the enemy; for these domestic and particular broils are not the question here”
C Quinn

3. Vilification of her husband’s character:
“milky gentleness” and “cowish terror”
She astutely aligns herself with the audacious Edmund because she thinks it is in her best interests to do so.
She is representative of a Hobbesian view on mankind: all human beings are “selfish” and life is ultimately “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short”- (rivalry between Goneril and Regan for Edmund’s affection is indicative of the Darwinian struggle for survival – every man for himself)
Goneril’s “vildeness” is indicative of an atavistic savagery.
C Quinn

4. Anathematises her father as made evident in the following quotations:
She refers to his “poor judgement” and “unruly waywardness”
"idle old man that would still manage those in authorities that he hath given away”
“Old fools are babes again”
“Put on what weary negligence you please”
C Quinn
C Quinn: Grind Notes -Margaret Ellen Clerkin

5. “The Road to Perdition”
Moral degeneration: Goneril become progressively worst throughout the play
“The Road to Perdition”
Sadistic delight in the misfortunes of others- Schadenfreude as made evident in the cruelty against Gloucester “Pluck out his eyes”
C Quinn

6. Bestial imagery used to depict her bestial nature and atavistic cruelty :
“sea monster”, “detested kite”, “ a vulture”; “a gilded serpent” , “a devil” and “a fiend”, “dog-hearted daughters” , “tigers, not daughters”
Her “filial ingratitude is “sharper than a serpent’s tooth; She is one of Lear’s “pelican daughters”;
C Quinn