Lear's pride and future ride heavily on the contract he lays out in Act One. The contract is to divide England among his daughters in hopes of avoiding the conflict between daughters that would surely follow if Lear dies in power. The conditions are that he retains a hundred soldiers and is to be housed in turn in his daughters' residences. The contract is made with good intentions and might have succeeded if Lear were not an arrogant egomaniac who thinks he deserves each of his daughters' unconditional love. Lear's request leaves his one truly loving daughter out of the contract. Too proud to admit fault, Lear follows through with the contract and banishes one of his few other loyalists, who enunciates the truth that Lear won't see: that his "youngest daughter does not love [him] least, nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds reverb no hollowness- (1.1.17). .
A short while later Regan refuses to house Lear and his hundred soldiers, and Lear responds with rage: "[T]hou art a boil, a plague-sore, an embossed carbuncle, in my corrupted blood."" (2.4.113). Unassuming egotistic Lear decides he will abide with his other daughter, Regan, whom he now figures, in comparison to Goneril, has "twice her love- (2.4.115) for him. When both daughters refuse to house Lear's one hundred soldiers, thus infringing on the pivotal contract laid out in Act 1, Lear is shocked and reviews three courses of actions: "I will have such revenge on you both that the world shall " I will do such things " what they are yet I know not, but they shall be the terrors of the earth! You think I'll weep. No, I'll not weep. I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a thousand flaws or ere I'll weep. O fool, I shall go mad!- (2.4.117). .
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When Lear proclaims that he is "a man more sinned against than sinning."" (3.2.131), he has only just begun to realize the circumstances at hand.