In King Lear and Coriolanus Shakespeare shows how parents who shame their children motivate them to commit violence that ultimately consumes the parent and child. To call this a perversion of parental love is virtually an understatement. Lear shames Goneril and Regan by loving Cordelia more than he loves them – so they bring about the deaths of both Lear and Cordelia. And Gloucester shames Edmund, who has his father’s eyes gouged out – an atrocity committed by American murderers we have seen – since people feel shamed in the eyes of others. Coriolanus shows how a mother’s teaching her son to achieve honor through violence ultimately rebounds on her and the very community she meant him to protect.