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Why is dramatic irony used in Romeo and Juliet
Why is dramatic irony used in Romeo and Juliet
Why is dramatic irony used in Romeo and Juliet
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In Shakespeare’s Richard the III, Richard acts as the villain. Richard follows Shakespeare’s universal theme presented in his works that humans who sin will meet their demise through their own conscience. Throughout the play Richard uses brilliant wordplay and superficial emotion to manipulate his victims. Richard’s manipulative actions are thematic and frequent throughout the entire play. Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to exemplify Richard’s successful use of manipulation. By manipulating both the mind and the heart Richard is a successful, manipulative orator who causes his own downfall due to his relentless acts of sinning.
Richard begins the play by manipulating the audience to pity him due to his deformities. Due to his deformities
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Richard becomes sympathetic in an evil sense when he divulges his plan to marry Warwick’s youngest daughter, Lady Anne. Richard tells the audience that, “the readiest way to make the wench amends is to become her husband and her father”(I.i.156-158). The irony behind Richards promise is that he’ll have her, “but [he] will not keep her long”(I.ii.236). Manipulating Lady Anne at a time when she's most vulnerable conveys to the audience that Richard is a villainous character. Richard employs compliments in an attempt to exploit Lady Anne's emotional state. Lady Anne's insults don't phase Richard even in the slightest, in fact, they feed his ego and enable him to continually exhibit his use of masterful wordplay. Richard is far too cunning to deliver compliments due to generosity. He justifies his past actions by professing his love for Lady Anne. Richard declares that her beauty was the motive for his previous actions. He proclaims to Anne that her beauty is so charismatic that it could enchant him to “undertake the death of all the world, so [he] might live one hour in [her] sweet bosom”(I.ii.128-129). Richards use of complex wordplay fulfills his lack of confidence that is caused from his deformities. He confesses that he only killed her husband so she could get a better one. Richard tells Lady Anne that her eyes have infected his eyes with love. Richard is quick to react in order to manipulate. However, Lady Anne's emotional state does not change until Richard shows sympathy for his wrongdoings and elects to bury the dead himself. Lady Anne is touched by Richards sympathy and respect towards the dead. She also is most joyous to hear Richard repent his sins, making it clear that she has fallen for is false sympathy. Richard professes to lady Anne that he will not only bury the dead, but also, “wet his grave with [his] repentant tears”(I.ii.220). To invent such a brilliant line in a
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.
To explore connections between texts is to heighten understanding of humanity’s progressing values and the underlying relevant themes that continue to engage societies regardless of context. William Shakespeare’s King Richard III (1592) (RIII) and Al Pacino’s docudrama Looking for Richard (1996) (LFR) demonstrate how opinion is created through comparative study, both explore the struggle for power within differing contexts to determine the duplicity of humanity. Ultimately, despite the divergent eras of composition and textual form, these connections expose the relevant social commentaries of their composers, highlighting innately human values, which remain constant.
Anne is quite like a modern woman in the way that if a man tells her
“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.
Gifted with the darkest attributes intertwined in his imperfect characteristics, Shakespeare’s Richard III displays his anti-hero traits afflicted with thorns of villains: “Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous / By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams” (I.i.32-33). Richard possesses the idealism and ambition of a heroic figure that is destined to great achievements and power; however, as one who believes that “the end justifies the means”, Richard rejects moral value and tradition as he is willing to do anything to accomplish his goal to the crown. The society, even his family and closest friends, repudiate him as a deformed outcast. Nevertheless, he cheers for himself as the champion and irredeemable villain by turning entirely to revenge of taking self-served power. By distinguishing virtue ethics to take revenge on the human society that alienates him and centering his life on self-advancement towards kingship, Richard is the literary archetype of an anti-hero.
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.
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.
The task which Shakespeare undertook was to mold the hateful constitution of Richard's Moral; character. Richard had to contend with the prejudices arising from his bodily deformity which was considered an indication of the depravity and wickedness of his nature. Richard's ambitious nature, his elastic intellect, and his want of faith in goodness conspire to produce his tendency to despise and degrade every surrounding being and object, even as his own person. He is never sincere except when he is about to commit a murder.
Composers throughout various zeitgeists are linked by different representations of universal human concerns, and their texts simultaneously embody certain values and agendas individual to themselves. An exploration of Shakespeare’s King Richard III (1592) and Al Pacino’s Looking for Richard (1996) allows for a greater understanding of the composer’s respective contexts, along with their intended agendas, through the lens of their own societal values and concerns. The manipulation of Richard III’s persona, whether by authorial adaptation of historical sources related to his character, or through the differing views of Richards motives, are universal concepts, that when studied in relation to the differing time periods, accentuates the context and our understanding of recurrent aspects of the human experience.
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.
According to many, Shakespeare intentionally portrays Richard III in ways that would have the world hail him as the ultimate Machiavel. This build up only serves to further the dramatic irony when Richard falls from his throne. The nature of Richard's character is key to discovering the commentary Shakespeare is delivering on the nature of tyrants. By setting up Richard to be seen as the ultimate Machiavel, only to have him utterly destroyed, Shakespeare makes a dramatic commentary on the frailty of tyranny and such men as would aspire to tyrannical rule.
Casting a darkly mythical aura around Richard III, supernatural elements are intrinsic to this Shakespearean history play. The prophetic dreams of Clarence and Stanley blur the line between dream and reality, serving to foreshadow impending doom. The ghosts that appear before Richard III and Richmond before their battle create an atmosphere of dread and suspense, and they also herald Richard's destiny. The curses of three female royalties are fulfilled at the end, serving as reminders that the divine powers are stronger than Richard's malice. Together, the supernatural elements of dreams, ghosts, and curses unify the plot of Richard III and allow the divine to triumph over evil.
Many would perceive madness and corruption to play the most influential role in Hamlet. However, it could be argued that the central theme in the tragedy is Shakespeare's presentation of actors and acting and the way it acts as a framework on which madness and corruption are built. Shakespeare manifests the theme of actors and acting in the disassembly of his characters, the façades that the individuals assume and the presentation of the `play within a play'. This intertwined pretence allows certain characters to manipulate the actions and thoughts of others. For this reason, it could be perceived that Shakespeare views the `Elsinorean' tragedy as one great puppet show, "I could see the puppets dallying".
From the beginning of the play, Richard II is apathetic at best in his royal role. By exiling Bolingbroke and...
Hamlet is one of Shakespeare’s most well-known tragedies. At first glance, it holds all of the common occurrences in a revenge tragedy which include plotting, ghosts, and madness, but its complexity as a story far transcends its functionality as a revenge tragedy. Revenge tragedies are often closely tied to the real or feigned madness in the play. Hamlet is such a complex revenge tragedy because there truly is a question about the sanity of the main character Prince Hamlet. Interestingly enough, this deepens the psychology of his character and affects the way that the revenge tragedy takes place. An evaluation of Hamlet’s actions and words over the course of the play can be determined to see that his ‘outsider’ outlook on society, coupled with his innate tendency to over-think his actions, leads to an unfocused mission of vengeance that brings about not only his own death, but also the unnecessary deaths of nearly all of the other main characters in the revenge tragedy.