Shakespeare - Paper 2

Explain how relationships have been represented in this scene, evaluating the significance of this scene in the play as a whole. In your response include a discussion of the composer’s use of film and stage techniques.
The essence of tragedy in Shakespeare’s King Lear is generated through the relationships and characterisations of the characters in the text, which contributes to our understanding of the individual relationships in King Lear and the text as a whole.
Through central themes of nature, betrayal, family feuds and social hierarchy, relationships, in Shakespeare’s King Lear, Peter Brooks 1962 production and Richard Eyre’s 1998   television adaptation, have been represented in their respective manner and has allowed for a deeper understanding of the text. Act Four Scene Six is a pivotal point in the text and exposes the fragility and flaws of man where the central character Lear is his own undoing, through his arrogance, vanity, and inability to condemn his sycophantic daughters and essentially brings about his own downfall. The text also displays the paternal relationships between fathers and their offspring’s which is mirrored in both the main plot and subplot.
The chosen scene of Gloucester’s near death experience at Dover fits in with Shakespeare’s text of King Lear as it demonstrates how the character of Edgar evolves. In the beginning of the text, Edmund mentions Gloucester is a "credulous father", is easily manipulated by Edmund and falls for Edmunds “practices”, disregarding Edgar without much thought, revealing Gloucester and Edgar's poor familial relationship. “A credulous father and brother noble/whose nature is so far from doing harms/That he suspects none; on who’s foolish honesty…” (Act 1, Scene 2)This soliloquy shows the lack of trust that Gloucester instils in Edgar and how easily he falls for Edmunds’s tricks. However, in the chosen scene, there is an evident shift and role-reversal in the relationship between Edgar and Gloucester....