Beginning of Essay
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, 1 ....

Middle of Essay
.... 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 ....