1. A Machiavellian Pragmatist
Edmund
A Machiavellian Pragmatist

2. An unscrupulous character
Licentious- doesn’t conform to the norms and conventions concerning bastardy- he rejects any labels/tags of baseness
He makes his own luck and will ‘fashion’ his future.
He knows that he has a ‘mind as generous and shape as true as a honest madam’s issue’.

3. His assertion that he will ‘top the legitimate’ and ‘stand up for bastards’ makes him a somewhat charismatic character- He is a likeable rogue.
He ruthlessly exploits other characters for his own selfish purposes- Gloucester, Edgar, Goneril and Regan.
Cruel & Vindictive: He sends Lear and Cordelia to their deaths because of the possible threat they represent to him: ‘to pluck the common bosom on their side’.

4. A credulous father and a brother noble whose nature is so far from doing harms that he suspects none’.
He conforms to the Hobbesian view of humanity: ‘Life is solitary, brutish, poor, nasty and short’. It’s a case of every man for himself.
Edmund is a victim of the vicissitudes of time.

5. A Lascivious Sycophant- Edmund is having liaisons with both Goneril and Regan even though both are married in an effort to advance his political assault :
‘Both of these sisters have I sworn my love; each jealous of the other, as the stung are of the adder’.

6. Does not take a sadistic delight in the sufferings of others: ‘This speech of yours hath moved me and shall perchance do good’ and ‘some good I mean to do despite mine own nature’
Everything he does is expedient to his own avaricious purposes.
Edmund is redeemed in his attempt to undo his evil in trying to save Lear and Cordelia.
Unlike the morally reprehensible Goneril and Regan, Edmund stands aloof in that he is partially redeemed.