Cordelia and Kent are symbolic of Lear’s sanity, and are often directly involved in it. While they are good influences on Lear, their relationship with him is complicated. Prior to the beginning of the play each has long known Lear and lies in his good graces, as indicated by Lear as well as Kent and Cordelia throughout 1.1. His love for Cordelia is most clearly shown when he refers to her as “[his] joy” (1.1.67), a distinction her sisters are not granted, and while Lear continues to note Cordelia’s status as his favorite daughter, at the slightest provocation he banishes and disowns her, completely irrationally and disproportionate to her actions. He behaves similarly towards Kent at the beginning of the play, who as one of Lear’s most trusted advisors should have considerable clout in discussions with him, but in an act of inexplicable rage Lear exiles Kent and threatens the latter with death. His emotional instability and fragile sense of reality are markers for diseases such as dementia/Alzheimer’s, and by displaying them clearly in the first scene Shakespeare sets the audience up for things to come.