The characters of woman within King Lear are portrayed as inferior and animal like. Whenever a woman character is brought up throughout the play they always are put in the situation of the bad guy or the one that did something wrong. This play shows very little if any respect for woman and views as completely inferior humans compared to men, the play even compares their actions to those of an animal. The reason being compared to an animal is so disrespectful is because animals are seen as wild and don’t have a grounding point and that animals don’t have the same power as humans. This leads into power and how little Lear trust woman or his daughters with the power of the kingdom. This also signifies that woman can not hold the same levels of power as men because they are inferior. Also Lear almost views woman materialistic during the beginning of the play when him and Cordelia have a fight about how she should love him more than she does. Lear wants Cordelia to love her father more than a daughter should love their father, but this is extremely weird and makes Lear look like a complete idiot.

Power is a huge theme throughout the whole play. There is always constant drama and disagreements about the power of the kingdom throughout the play. Now Power can mean a lot of different things and I feel like almost everyone in the play thinks that they have more power than they really do. So how do you quantify power? Power is handed from one person to the next throughout the play but does that really mean that they do have that much power?

This is unrelated to power and how woman are treated in the play but the way in which characters that are in disguise is used multiple times throughout the play is very interesting to me. It gives that extra spice to the play.