How does act 1 scene 1 of king lear set the scene for the rest of the play
The beginning of a work often sets the tone for the rest of the entire endeavor. In drama especially, the first scene of a play generally sets up the basic themes and situations that the remainder will work with. In king lear's very first scene, we see many of the play's fundamental themes and images presented. The recurrent imagery of human senses and of "nothing", the distortion of familial and social ties, the gradual dissolution of lear's kingship, all make their first appearances in the first line of shakespeare's tragedy.
Much of the imagery in king lears first scene presages what is to come in the play. Often characters refer to senses, particularly sight, whether as a comment on the neccesity of sensing consequences before acting (as Lear does not), or as yet another of shakespeares comments on "seeming" (see Hamlet).the destruction of Gloucesters eyes and his subsequent musings,
(I stumbled when I saw,(v.i.19)) are a more graphical presentation of this key theme which originally appears in lears first scene. Goneril declares lear is "dearer than eyesight"(I.i.56) to her (however Goneril is the one who later suggests putting Gloucesters eyes out for his "treachery"). Regan goes further, proclaiming "I profess/ myself an enemy to all other joys/ which the most precious square of sense posesses" (I.i.72-74). Crossed in his wrath by Kent, Lear cries "out of my sight" (I.i.57), only to be reproved with Kent's "see better, lear, and let me still remain/ the true blank of thine eye"
In Shakespearean terms, blind means a entirely different thing. Blindness can normally be defined as the inability of the eye to see, but according to Shakespeare, blindness is not a physical quality, but a mental flaw some people possess. Shakespeare's most dominant theme in his play King Lear is that of blindness. King L...