My Love’s More Ponderous Than My Tongue: Musings on Fathers and Daughters
Here I disclaim my paternal care, propinquity and property of blood, and as a stranger to my heart and me hold thee, from this, forever.
At its heart, King Lear is a tragedy of miscommunications. Miscommunications between kings and earls, fathers and sons, but most importantly, fathers and their daughters.
When Lear’s youngest daughter, Cordelia, is pressured to flatter her father in exchange for her share in his realm, I cannot heave my heart into my mouth, she says in desperation. She cannot express her love in words, but Lear cannot understand this. His pride is hurt, and in a searing act of rage banishes her not only in ‘propinquity’, in closeness, but in ‘property of blood’, and wishes he could sever blood relations altogether. It’s a sad, brutal reaction to Cordelia’s honesty and one that reeks of the self-entitled manner of masculinity.
While King Lear would be frowned upon today for calling his daughter an ‘emboss’d carbuncle’, the miscommunication that prevails between fathers and daughters still very much exists today. You only have to look at the term ‘daddy issues’ - which is mostly applied to young women - to see that this is an issue that isn’t so prevalent with sons.
Cisgendered ‘gender roles’, and indeed the performance of gender altogether, has formed the basis of the family unit for years. At its most basic, men are expected to be powerful, leading figures, while women must be subservient and completely charming.
To go back to King Lear, you only have to look at the setup of the opening scene of the National Theatre’s 2014 production. Simon Russell Beale plays a terrifying, authoritative Lear, and sits far away from his panel of daughters in his spectacle. Playing his middle daughter, Regan, is Anna Maxwell-Martin: who giggles, sits on her father’s lap and uses all her ‘feminine charm’ to bargain for her share in the realm - soliciting approving applause from Lear. And this is why Cordelia is banished. She refuses to take part in the farce.
Today, I’d like to think we’re moving away from these roles. I’d like to think we’re more adept in embracing our messy, human selves - gender or no gender. But as a result of knocking these expectations of daughters aside, a silent wedge can drive between our intergenerational existences. The lines of communication that used to flow are cut short as we forge our way into the world.
These are merely my own musings. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, and I cannot offer one in this article. Neither, it seems, can the countless parent forums, psychology websites, or agony aunt sections in newspapers. Because there are thousands of different realities out there, all of which are completely valid. Some people may have a great relationship with their father; some people may not.
Some people have a neutral-at-best relationship with their father: which is the situation I found myself in throughout my teenage years. Perhaps that came down to the fact we had different interests. My dad attempted to get me into athletics and squash (I daydreamed on the track and on the court respectively) before I threw myself into books. We still joke that he hasn’t read a book since 1985. “We’re just different people,” I’d shrug.
One thing that did bring us together is music. When it came to music, the divide began to heal a little. We shared the same tastes, we started a joint project on a jukebox - rifling through boxes of 45s in dingy flea market corners and subsequently squabbling over which ones would take up precious space. When I started gigging, he’d drive me to sticky-floored venues to play to a crowd of 5. My dad has never been the best with words, but these small acts have proved there is more to our relationship than what we say.
At the end of King Lear, the husk of a once-powerful king sobs as he holds Cordelia’s body in his arms, before dying himself. As with all tragedies, his realisation of the error of his ways comes too late. We can take a little lesson from this, however dramatic it may seem. We don’t have to wait until breaking point to improve our relationships. We can start with the smallest things to bring us together - but the effort has to be on both sides.
Written by Molly Cheek
Molly works in administration for her local town council. She has a degree in English Literature from Cardiff University, primarily studying 19th-century literature and women writers of the period. She writes poetry and songs, and enjoys walking around Bristol, Somerset and beyond.