Throughout King Lear, the audience has witnessed Edmund's growing success as a reward for his evil machinations. But when Edgar and Edmund meet in Act V, the duel between these two brothers is very different from the traditional match for sport. Christian tradition recalls several biblical battles between good and evil, as divine justice is an important component of trial by combat. The duel between Edgar and Edmund is really a conflict that replays this ongoing battle between good and evil, with Edgar's defeat of Edmund obviously signaling the triumph of righteousness over corruption. Edgar's victory, as well as his succession of Lear, as king of Britain, points to an intervention of divine justice.
And yet, when Lear enters with Cordelia's body, any immediate ideas about divine justice vanish. The deaths of Cornwall, Edmund, Regan, and Goneril have lulled the audience into a belief that the gods would restore order to this chaotic world. But Cordelia's death creates new questions about the role of divine justice; a just god could not account for the death of this faithful and loving daughter.
In spite of the seemingly senseless death of this young woman, Shakespeare never intended for his audience to escape the painful questions that Cordelia's death creates. Instead, the audience is expected to struggle with the question of why such tragedies occur. The deaths of Gloucester and Lear are acceptable. Both have made serious errors in judgment, and although both came to recognize their complicity in the destruction that they caused, the natural resolution of this change was an acceptance of their future, whatever it held. But Cordelia is young and blameless. She is completely good and pure.
At the play's conclusion, the stage is littered with bodies, some deserving of death and some the innocent victims of evil. Cornwall has been destroyed by his own honest servant; Edmund is killed by the brother he sought to usurp; both Goneril and Regan are dead, one murdered and the other a suicide; the obedient steward, Oswald, is dead, a victim of his own compulsion to obey. In the end, no easy answer surfaces to the question of divine justice, except that perhaps man must live as if divine justice exists, even if it's only a product of rich and wishful imaginations.
