An Argument To Support The View That

‘everything About The Pl Essay, Research Paper

An argument to support the view that “everything

about the play [King Lear] hangs on the first two scenes not

just the plot but the values as well.”

“King Lear, as I see it, confronts the perplexity and mystery of human

action.” (Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies, 169) As the previous quotation

from the scriptures of Maynard Mack implies, King Lear is a very complex

and intricate play which happens to be surrounded by a lot of debate. “The

folio of 1623, which was, as is well known, edited by two of Shakespeare’s

fellow actors” (Notes and Essays on Shakespeare, 242), contains not only

historical errors, but errors which pertain to certain characters speaking other

characters lines. Amidst all the controversy one fact can be settled upon by

all; King Lear is one of Shakespeare’s best tragedies. While being a great

play, the bulk of the plot in King Lear comes mainly from the first two scenes

where most of the key events happen. Along with the plot there is also

extensive amounts of setup that occur within the dialogue which key the

audience in on the morals and values of the characters. Marilyn French is

completely accurate when she states that “Everything about the play hangs on

the first two scenes not just the plot but the values as well” (Shakespeare’s

Division of Experience, 226).

The opening scenes of King Lear do an immaculate job of setting up

the plot and forming the basis for all the events which occur in the later

scenes of the play. “The elements of that opening scene are worth pausing

over, because they seem to have been selected to bring before us precisely

such an impression of unpredictable effects lying coiled and waiting in an

apparently innocuous posture of affairs.” (Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies,

170) Not only do the opening scenes impress upon us what events could

happen in the future, they seem to give us the whole plot in a neatly wrapped

package. After the first two scenes are over the audience is basically just

along for the ride, waiting to see how the events given to us in the opening

scenes unfold. “As we look back over the first scene, we may wonder

whether the gist of the whole matter has not been placed before us, in the

play’s own emblematic terms, by Gloucester, Kent, and Edmund in that brief

conversation with which the tragedy begins.” (Shakespeare’s Middle

Tragedies, 171) In the first scene Lear, having realized that death is closing

in on him, decides to divide his land between his daughters. This is one of

the most pivotal points in the play as the effects of this action are enormous.

Lear ends up casting aside Cordelia, who is the only daughter he has who

truly loves him, and gives all his land to his other two, power hungry,

daughters. The other pivotal point in the first scene which has a huge affect

on the rest of the play is the inclusion of the talk about Edmund. Edmund

realizes that, due to his illegitimacy, he can never amount to anything. “The

first action alluded to is the old king’s action in dividing his kingdom, the dire

effects of which we are almost instantly to see. The other action is

Gloucester’s action in begetting a bastard son, and the dire effects of this will

also speedily be known.” (Shakespeare’s Middle Tragedies, 171) The

consequences of these two actions are what the whole play revolves around.

The division of Lear’s kingdom causes Reagan and Goneril to realize that

“Lear had lived long, but he had not learned wisdom.” (Notes and Essays on

Shakespeare, 262) As they begin to realize just how easy they can take

advantage of him, Lear begins to see this as well and is furious, at first, then

his madness starts to set in. Gloucester’s bastard son, Edmund, plays a very

important role in the plot of the play as well. His struggle for power and

notoriety causes much havoc throughout the play. He deceives both his

brother and his father just so that he can advance his title. While the extreme

outcomes of the two actions noted are not known until after the first two

scenes of the play, they are the two most important pieces of plot information

that are given throughout the length of the play. The fact that the two most

important pieces of plot information are structuralized in the two opening

scenes of the play add a profound amount of credit towards Marilyn French’s

opinion that everything about the play hangs on the first two scenes.

The plot of King Lear is not the only part of the play that rests on the

first two scenes. An enormous amount of the dialogue is specifically used to

reveal the values and morals of each character. It is very important to know

the values that each character has in order to have a greater understanding of

why the play unfolds the way it does. For example, it would be hard to

believe that Goneril and Reagan could be so

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