Richard, the main character of the Shakespeare’s play, Richard III is portrayed as socially destructive and politically over-ambitious. His destructive potential is depicted by the way he relates with the other protagonists in the play and also by what he confesses as his intentions. Richard’s political ambition is revealed through his strategic calculations based on the order of birth in his York family which puts him third away from the throne. Ahead of him is his elder brother, George Clarence, a barrier which will have to eradicate. His brother, King Edward, is another political barrier, by simply being alive, in power and equally by being the father of the two young princes . Richard’s creates a political mistrust between his two brothers without directly implicating himself to clear his way to power. The main objective of this essay is to show how well Richard fits the figure of vice character in the Shakespeare’s play. We are going to examine this aspect of Richard from two dimensions. First of all, through his expressed intentions, motivations and deeds. Secondly, through what other characters accuse him of and their attitudes towards him. It will not be possible for us to revisit each character and how he or she relates with Richard. However, Anne, Margaret, the Duchess of York, citizens, the ghosts and finally Richmond will be examined. Richard, the villain From the beginning of the play, the character of Richard is depicted as amiss. Thomas More’s account of King Richard states that King Richard“was malicious, wrathful, envious, and, from afore his birth ever forward” (More, 2005:10).King Richard’s mother, the Duchesse of York is said to have had a hard labour at his birth. Richard is said to have come into the wor... ... middle of paper ... ...ueen Margaret, England will remain in turmoil. Conclusion Shakespeare introduces to us a character who is evil according to the moral judgement of the moment. He does not respect the social values and norms. For him social taboos such as incest and crimes such as murder cease to be wrong once they become instruments of power. He is Satan incarnated, cunning, greedy and destructive. He has no respect for those who observe social, norms, family ethics and political loyalty. As a King, he governs with terror and assassinates those whose views differ from his. To us he is a dictator. The citizens are scared at the idea of being ruled by him. Their future is doomed with Richard in power. His own relatives and ghost shower him with curses and wants his downfall. Those who remain by his side are governed by fear lest they loose their lives and those of their loved ones.
Richard III's Usurpation and His Downfall Richards rule was always unstable due to his unlawful usurpation to the throne and his part as far as the public was concerned in the death of the two princes. As a result right from the start he didn't have the trust or support from his country. As soon as he became King people were already plotting against him. After he was crowned he travelled the country trying to raise support by refusing the generous gifts offered to him by various cities. However unknown to him a rebellion was been planned in the South.
Richard did not manage to recover from the usurpation of Edward and after allegedly murdering the two Princes in the tower his reputation had fallen greatly. He had lost a lot of respect from nobles and from the populus. Killing the Princes could be seen as one of the major factors of his downfall. It was common place in monarchical families to have brothers and sisters "put out of the picture", but even in these primitive times, the murder of innocent children was a taboo.
...e was also writing in Tudor England and seemed to have openly dislike Richard III. In other portions of his writing he describes Richard as an unattractive deformed man who was born with a full set of teeth. He writes that he had a “sour countenance , which seemed to savour of mischief, and utter evidently craft and deceit.”
It is about how Richard, Duke of Gloucester, plots to eradicate anyone standing in the way of him becoming king. In order for Richard to come to the throne. after his brother Edward IV), he must dispose of the three people due. to inherit the throne before him: his brother, George, and his wife. nephews, Edward and Richard.
“I am determined to prove a villain / and hate the idle pleasures of these days. / Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, / by drunken prophecies, libels and dreams.” Richard III, the evil Duke of Gloucester, is fighting a bloody road to the crown in Shakespeare's dramatic play. Stopped by nothing and with brilliant intelligence, Richard fights his way to the king’s position, clothing his villany with “old odd ends stolen out of holy writ.” With no one to fully trust, Richard breaks many hearts by killing all people in his way, and becomes the unstoppable villain. He hides behind a shield of kindness and care, but when he is alone, his real soul comes alive. Sending murderers, or killing people himself, he has no mercy. Manipulating Lady Anne to marry him and promising Buckingham rewards for his deeds, he knows what he is doing, and won’t stop until the crown lies at his feet.
In conclusion, it is apparent that Richard III is quite a moral play. The characters in it are able to repent their own transgressions, and condemn those of others, and finally, retribution and judgement are always carried through. This text fully demonstrates a social morality that is, early on, ignored, but culminates in the fulfilment of a natural justice, and thereby endorses the moral codes it shows us.
The undeniable pursuit for power is Richard’s flaw as a Vice character. This aspect is demonstrated in Shakespeare’s play King Richard III through the actions Richard portrays in an attempt to take the throne, allowing the audience to perceive this as an abhorrent transgression against the divine order. The deformity of Richards arm and back also symbolically imply a sense of villainy through Shakespeare’s context. In one of Richard’s soliloquies, he states how ‘thus like the formal Vice Iniquity/ I moralize two meanings in one word’. Through the use of immoral jargons, Shakespeare emphasises Richard’s tenacity to attain a sense of power. However, Richard’s personal struggle with power causes him to become paranoid and demanding, as demonstrated through the use of modality ‘I wish’ in ‘I wish the bastards dead’. This act thus becomes heavily discordant to the accepted great chain of being and conveys Richard’s consumption by power.
William Shakespeare’s characterization of Britain’s historical monarch Richard III, formerly Duke of Gloucester, is one of the most controversial in literature. To this day there are arguments upholding Richard III’s villainy and ascertaining his murder of the Princes in the tower, just as there are those who believe that he has been falsely represented by Shakespeare’s play and fight avidly to clear his name of any and all crimes. Because of the uncertainty surrounding his true character, Richard III is an intriguing personality to put into modern culture, which is exactly what Ian McKellen does in his rendition of the infamous ruler. However, McKellen’s portrayal of Richard III preserves the basic personality of Shakespeare’s character and continues the idea of Richard III as tyrant and murderer; there is no doubt that McKellen captures the bestial nature of Richard, but even though this main staple of the play is kept intact, there are other aspects of this adaptation that are not so true to Shakespeare’s vision. Overall, however, I believe that this is an honest modernization of a classic play, and that Shakespeare would have approved of most of the changes made, with only a few exceptions.
This contributes to a very villainous role. Richard begins his journey to the throne. He manipulates Lady Anne. into marrying him, even though she knows that he murdered her first. husband.
Shakespeare Richard III was a traitor, a murderer, a tyrant, and a hypocrite. The leading characteristics of his mind are scorn, sarcasm, and an overwhelming contempt. It appears that the contempt for his victims rather than active hatred or cruelty was the motive for murdering them. Upon meeting him he sounds the keynote to his whole character. " I, that am curtailed of this proportion, cheated of feature by dissembling nature, Deform'd, unfinish'd sent before my time Into this word scarce half made up"( 1.1.20-23)
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
Humanity's version of entertainment undeniably reflects a violent history rife with bloody quests for power. However, the stage has never seen a more villainous protagonist than in Shakespeare's Richard III. Our antihero, Richard of Gloucester, immediately engages the audience with a sweet soliloquy, his plot, filled with goals of betrayal and murder effectively forming a bond between himself and his listeners— a bond built on the illusion of truth. [Queen Elizabeth info] The illusion of truth is the goal of any successful performer, and Richard's ability to influence his listeners, both the audience and the characters in the play, demonstrates his power as a performer, which deteriorates once he is crowned king. His facade cracks and ultimately breaks down once he no longer has an audience to perform for, leaving Richard a victim of his own undoing.
jailed and executed for committing treason. www.altavista.com search engine said that in the play, Shakespeare said that Richard
Shakespeare and other less famous writers wrote books to please their new king, whom needed the good publicity after the usurpation. This means that pretty much everything about Richard has been corrupted by this propaganda, most notably his character and how he ruled England. This essay has shown that these accounts of Richard are untruthful and unjust. Richard may not have been a saint, but he was the archetypical ruthless medieval king that is to be expected of him and he was not really that different from other medieval kings. We will probably never know what is really true about Richard III and how he really was, even though we can get a pretty good idea, but he will remain the most famous and controversial king in English history because of the propaganda spread by the
7 May 2010. Studygodorg.blogspot.com -. 14 March 2014. Downing, Elizabeth. A. The “Top 10 Greatest Shakespeare Villians.”