Indeed, the proliferation of potential successors becomes apparent in Act 1. The three sons of York prepare for the Battle of Mortimer’s Cross and as they converse, Richard spots ‘three glorious suns, each one a perfect sun’ (3HVI 2.1.25) in the sky above the battlefield. Wondering what the phenomenon might mean, Edward offers an interpretation: I think it cites us, brother, to the field, That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet, Each one already blazing by our meeds, Should notwithstanding join our lights together And over-shine the earth as this the world. (3HVI 2.1.34-8) Playing on the homophones ‘sun’ and ‘son’, Edward interprets the sky in relation to the House of York’s battle for the crown. The three sons of York – Edward, Richard and …show more content…
Together, by securing the monarchy, he proclaims that they will ‘over-shine the earth’. By addressing Richard as ‘brother’, the image of the three suns is ostensibly one of unity between the trio. In the following line, Edward promises to ‘bear/upon my target three fair-shining suns’ (3 HVI 2.1.40) – therefore linking the sun directly with the Yorkist campaign for the kingdom. Yet importantly, Edward’s assertion of unity is immediately undercut. His poetic speech is rapidly followed with Richard’s bathetic answer: that Edward should instead ‘bear three daughters’ instead because he loves ‘the breeder better than the male’ (3 HVI 2.1.41-2). The otherworldliness of the three suns is undercut with scatological language (‘breeder’). Moreover, due to Shakespeare’s use of iambic pentameter, the first syllable of Richard’s response (‘nay’ (3 HVI 2.1.41)) is stressed. Richard’s response is deprecating and negative, and the image of unity expressed by Edward of the brothers as ‘one lamp, one light, one sun’ is undermined. Only one brother can be the king, and this sense of disunity prompts a different reading of the three suns: that there are three,
First power, amongst the royal family the mother, Eleanor is the Queen; the father is King Henry, the youngest son John, middle son Geoffrey, and oldest son Richard. In the play not one, but all of these characters have power in some kind of way. King Henry spent his life conquering many regions and wants to continue to conquer by passing king down to one of his three sons. A quote from the play that shows the greed that having power can create Henry asked, “Isn’t being chancellor power enough?” Geoffrey replies, “It’s not the power I feel deprived of. It’s the mention I miss.” Geoffrey does not think he will receive enough respect if he is just the chancellor and his younger brother John is king. When he comes to Richard, the oldest brother he thinks he should be king because of his army he has behind him, but this is where futility comes into play. It is not always about war and killing people to prove your powerful, but in Richards’s ways that is the only way. Richard says, “I am a constant soldier, a sometime poet, and I will be king.” This quote describes the type of person Richard wants to be, he wants to have all the power to rein over the castle and do it through war. Each of the family members is jealous of one another especially the children of the king and queen, it is pretty much a sibling rivalry between them. Having power can be a good thing or bad thing, in this situation the king and queens children have a different view on having power and what they would do if crowned
Prince Hal is initially portrayed as being incapable of princely responsibilities in light of his drinking, robbery and trickery. Yet, Shakespeare reveals that Hal is in fact only constructing this false impression for the purpose of deceit. Prince Hal’s manipulative nature is evident in his first soliloquy, when he professes his intention to “imitate the sun” and “break through the foul and ugly mists”. The ‘sun’ Prince Hal seeks to ‘imitate’ can in this case be understood as his true capacity, as opposed to the false impression of his incapacity, which is symbolised by the ‘foul and ugly mists’. The differentiation of Hal’s capacity into two categories of that which is false and that which is true reveals the duplicity of his character. Moreover, Hal is further shown to be manipulative in the same soliloquy by explaining his tactic of using the “foil” of a lowly reputation against his true capacity to “attract more eyes” and “show more goodly”. The diction of “eyes” symbolically represents public deception, concluding political actions are based on strategy. It is through representation and textual form that we obtain insight into this
Richard being generous gave his younger brother rewards of several lands in England and he also made John the Count of Mortain in France. Whilst he was planning to go through a series of wars, Richard did not want his brother to enter England and he forced John to promise that he wouldn’t and John kept his word until he found out that Richard was intending to give the role of successor to the throne to their nephew. John felt that he should be king and he entered England, breaking his promise and tried to persuade the English people in order to gain the throne but the English woul...
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.
Henry IV is a play that concerns itself with political power and kingship in English history. References to kingship are prevalent throughout the play, especially in the depiction of the characters. Although most of the characters in this play could teach us about kingship, I would like to focus my attention to Prince Henry. I think that this character helps us to best understand what kingship meant at this particular time in history.
King Richard III was the last Plantagenet king and is doubtlessly one of the most controversial British rulers of the Middle Ages. His reign marked the end of the Wars of the Roses between the Yorkists and the Lancastrians and the beginning of a new myth based not only on his physical appearance but also on this moral. He is depicted as a deformed human being; he is believed to have had a hunchback and his physical description is one of a monster, of a deformed creature. However, this allegation most likely lies on the grounds that he has been an inhumanly cruel and wicked person; a ruthless tyrant who is thought to have murdered and bastardised his two young nephews in the Tower of London, one of which had been crowned to the throne. In order to provide evidence to the accusations levelled at Richard III, archaeologists have conducted numerous excavations to find out whether this portrait of Richard III was real or a mere metaphor to describe his actions. It is just conceivably that this physical representation is based on the Tudor Myth -a myth that initially started by Tudor’s historians such as Polydore Vergir and Sir Thomas More, and perpetuated by Shakespreare’s play Richard III, in which he is also described as an abnormal King.
Knight, G. Wilson. The Wheel of Fire: Essays in Interpretation of Shakespeare’s Sombre Tragedies. London: Oxford UP, 1930.
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.
Shakespeare's plays beginning with Richard II and concluding with Henry V presents an interesting look at the role of a king. England's search for "the mirror of all Christian kings" provided the opportunity to explore the many facets of kingship showing the strengths and weaknesses of both the position and the men who filled that position. Through careful examination, Shakespeare develops the "king" as a physical, emotional, and psychological being. By presenting the strengths and weaknesses of these characteristics, Shakespeare presents a unified look at the concept of "kingship" and demonstrates that failure to achieve proper balance in "the king versus the man" struggle, leads to the ongoing bloodshed examined in this tetralogy and the next.
William Shakespeare often examines the personal transformation of characters in his works. His frequent illustrations of changing players most likely suggests that he is a true believer in the idea of people being able to emotionally grow. Moreso, the author essentially endorses the thought of developing humanity as a living being. Parallel to King Richard in Richard II, he illustrates many characters throughout his works whom undergo similar personal growth. Oftentimes these personal changes occur when a character suffers great loss in life. In this particular play these changes give the readers a chance to develop a bit of fondness in the once ignorant king. Most readers would normally accept positive changes within the mind and soul of characters. In Richard II, Shakespeare depicts the personal stages of King Richard. Ultimately, Richard is illustrated as one who finally embraces humanity, and, in turn, affects the readers’ final response to the ever-changed king in a positive way.
King Henry stumbles onto the battlefield and hides behind a tree, just in time to grab a front row seat to the metaphorical birth of King Richard. This scene draws a comparison between the gentle King Henry and the monstrous, merciless ruler Richard is on his way to becoming. It was with a look of almost childlike wonder that Richard rallied behind his father, and with a look of absolute horror as he hid, much like Henry in this scene, and witnessed the murder of his brother. King Henry as witness to the fight between Richard and Clifford serves to highlight Richard’s development as a character as well as Henry’s ruin.
“…we three meet again in thunder, lighting or in rain?….When the battle’s lost and won….That will be ere the set of sun….There to meet with Macbeth.”
The relationship between a father and his son is an important theme in Shakespeare's Henry IV, Part One, as it relates to the two main characters of the play, Prince Hal and Hotspur. These two characters, considered as youths and future rulers to the reader, are exposed to father-figures whose actions will influence their actions in later years. Both characters have two such father-figures; Henry IV and Falstaff for Prince Hal, and the Earl of Northumberland and the Earl of Worcester for Hotspur. Both father-figures for Hal and Hotspur have obvious good and bad connotations in their influence on the character. For example, Falstaff, in his drinking and reveling, is clearly a poor influence for a future ruler such as Prince Hal, and Worcester, who shares Hotspur's temper, encourages Hotspur to make rash decisions. The entire plot of the play is based on which father-figure these characters choose to follow: had they chosen the other, the outcome would have been wholly different.
2,000 Lancastrian men.” (“Wars of the Roses”) The Yorkists led by the Earls of Salisbury
The possession of a higher power and authority is the foundation of an individual’s excessive pride, which ultimately restricts their rationality and leads to their downfall. In fact, through studying Lear in the love scene, Shakespeare has indefinitely characterised Lear as a hubristic monarch due to his initial power and authority, conveyed through the sennet and majestic plural used in Lear’s entrance and dialogue respectively. For example, Lear’s decision to ‘[divide] in three [his] kingdom’ so that ‘future strife may