The significance in the opening scene of Shakespeare's
King Lear rests with two significant points. The first is that a
central theme in the play will be reality versus appearance. In the
first scene, Cordelia refuses to charm her father with flowery, empty words of love, but
simply speaks the truth. However, her sisters do provide empty words of love and praise.
This is what Lear wants to hear, but mistakenly believes the words are true. In doing
so, he rejects Cordelia who truly loves him, banishing her from his life, and he accepts
his other uncaring, deceitful daughters who will take what they can from him, and will
not support him when he needs them most.
In addition, when
Cordelia answers her father's question regarding her love with the word "nothing," Lear
repeats the word "nothing" again. The idea of "nothing" foreshadows the "chaos" that
will control the action of the remainder of the play; Lear will lose everything because
rather than hear the truth of those around him and see things as they truly are, he
chooses to be blind to what his eyes should see, and deaf to the
words from those who care for him.
Ironically, where the
King of France admires Cordelia's honesty, Lear in what Kent sees as madness, fails to
notice the value of his daughter. By losing her, he loses all.
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