Lee was interested in adulthood, but still feeling like a child, and how discovering that your parent is dying could change your view on mortality. So Lee used the well-known, Shakespearean play called King Lear as the template for conveying those messages. Lee’s adaptation of King Lear twisted a few major plot points, such as having King Lear die when in reality, his other daughter, Cordelia dies. In her version, Goneril and Reagan kick their father outside the palace into a horrible storm and when Cordelia, the other daughter who didn’t partake in this, finds out that their father has been in the storm, she immediately assumes that he is dead. Other characters start to confirm her statement and Goneril, trying to grapple with her father’s death, takes his place and calls herself Lear. This shift in power causes this part of the play to break down, leaving the audience with many unanswered questions. The dramaturgy writes in regards to this point in the play, “Lee blows it open structurally — not physically — and asks us to consider the real meat of her play: whether any art can adequately address or shed light on the scariest part of the human condition: that death is inevitable and utterly permanent; when we die, we do not come back and no one knows where we go or what happens to us.”. The unstructured nature from this point of the play until the end still doesn’t solve this dilemma but inspires and leaves the audience with a sense of comfort.

https://learbyyoungjeanlee.wordpress.com/the-world-of-the-play/