Act 1 Blog 1

Edmund is simply a child who perceives that he has not felt the love of his father as much as his other sibling, and therefore feels jealousy and anger because his treatment appears to be unjust. Edmund is the illegitimate son of Gloucester, and therefore is not to receive any inheritance from his father. Instead, all inheritance will go to Edgar, Gloucester’s legitimate son. Edmund plots to take the inheritance for himself by tricking both Edgar and Gloucester in a complex scheme. Edmund acts out of his jealousy and in retaliation to the lack of respect that has been shown to him as Edgar’s equal. It is typical for a child to become jealous and angry and secluded when not given equal recognition. I think that it is admirable that Edmund was actually able to formulate a retaliation out of his emotions and set the plan into action, however evil the plan may be. It speaks to his intelligence and coherency. Gloucester treats Edmund as inferior to his brother (regardless of Gloucester’s true feelings for Edmund) because in Shakespearian times, it was the societal norm for the illegitimate child to be inferior. Also, Gloucester treats Edmund poorly because he is embarrassed by the fact that he has an illegitimate son in the first place. I think that the closest modern day equivalent to the way that Gloucester treats Edmund would be the relationship between stepchildren and stepparents. Stepparents typically prefer their real children (if the have them) to stepchildren because of family ties, and vice versa.