King Lear: Everything About The Play Hangs On First Two Scenes

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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, ...

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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 ...

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