The tragedy of Shakespeare's King Lear is made much more tragic and painful by the presence and suffering of the king's youngest daughter, Cordelia. Although our sympathy for the king is somewhat curbed by his brutal cruelty towards others, there is nothing to dampen our emotional response to Cordelia's suffering. Nothing, at first glance. Harley Granville-Barker justifies his irreconcilable fate thus: "the tragic truth of life for the Shakespeare who wrote King Lear... includes his capricious cruelty. And what better sacrifice than Cordelia?"5. Yet in another passage Granville-Barker comes much closer to the true explanation. I quote the passage extensively. It would be a fatal mistake to present Cordelia as a mild saint. She has more than a touch of her father in her. She is as proud as he is and just as stubborn, for all her sweetness and youth. And being young, he responds without calculation with pride to his pride, just as he will later respond with pity to his misery. To lose this similarity between the two is to lose Shakespeare's first important dramatic effect; the powerful old man and the fragile child, faced, and each inflexible... If age owes a certain tolerance to youth, one can also think that youth owes age and fatherhood something more - and less - than truth. .6 Once again he summarizes the concept: Lear's uncontrolled pride has become monstrous and sick with his years. In her youth she appears uncontaminated, she is in bloom. But it is the same pride.7 As in the portrait of Desdemona, here too Shakespeare has presented a woman of beauty and culture. His demeanor is gentle and refined although he does not lack strength or determination. His emotions are deep, pure, loyal and...... center of the card...... speaksWhen does power bend to flattery? Honor is bound to simplicity when majesty falls into madness. (Ii144-8) The immediate result is the order to be exiled from the kingdom and to wear a disguise so that he can continue his service to Lear. Interestingly, none of the truly evil characters in the drama have yet made a conscious initiative decision. Up to this point everything revolves around the interaction between Lear, Cordelia and Kent and all the terrible suffering that follows has its origin in this meeting. To properly understand King Lear, we must see the true meaning of the court and the direct relationship between it and the tragedy that follows. We must discover the source of the great intensity and direction that finds expression in the action of the drama and brings it to its inexorable conclusion.