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He says, “He that parts us shall bring a brand from heaven/ And fire use hence like foxes”
(5.3.22-23). Lear believes that their relationship could exist because he equates himself to nature
again; however, the father and daughter relationship could only exist through means of the
binary oppositions. Kakkonen and Penjak explain this phenomenon in that “nature means that
people have bodies and souls, and that both have certain needs” (20). Once Lear and Cordelia
were unable to meet those certain needs to keep a balanced relationship, despite Lear’s efforts to
connect Cordelia to nature were ineffective because his sense of patriarchy was lost as well.

While Lear was unable to have a father-daughter relationship in his fantasy natural world,
Prospero and Miranda have a father-daughter relationship even though they live in nature. When
establishing their relationship, Prospero’s explanation follows that of Leonato’s in that his
daughter is connected to him because of reproduction. Prospero tells Miranda, “Thy mother was
a piece of virtue, and/ She said thou was my daughter” (1.1.56-57). Instead of Prospero’s
patriarchy challenged because of possible cuckoldry like Leonato’s was, he brings Miranda
closer to nature and acknowledges their father-daughter relationship by confirming her mother’s
honesty. However, Prospero is not as active in relating his daughter to nature as Leonato and
Lear are. Prospero and Miranda are already immersed in nature as they are confined to an island;
therefore, most of Miranda’s relation to nature is as close as she will ever be without Prospero
having to use natural terms to connect the two. Kakkonen and Penjak help illustrate why
Miranda being immersed in nature explains why she naturally obeys her father without his
comparisons. They write, “nature acts as a social construct, which can then be employed in a
political and cultural sense; it can maintain and regulate the existing social order” (Kakkonen 20).
Nature is surrounding Miranda wherever she goes on the island; therefore, Prospero’s
relationship to Miranda is basically fixed because nature allows her to act natural and obey her