How Does Richard's Quest To Become King

Ambition is an earnest desire for achievement. Both texts are self reflexive and emphasise Richard’s obsessive ambition, desire and longing for the throne. Each Richard strives towards capturing the throne regardless of consequences and bloodshed. Richard is depicted in both texts as an ambitious character who strives to gain power and independence through deception and self confessed villainy. ‘Since I cannot prove a lover. . . I am determined to prove a villain’ This obsession which drives Richard to commit horrific evils to gain and then protect his claim to the throne. His ambition, power and evil blinds him and inevitably is responsible for his downfall in both of the texts. A connection is formed between Looking for Richard and King Richard III in the final scenes Al Pacino’s interpretation and ‘Hollywood’ background influences an ending which can be interpreted as portraying Richmond as a coward. Elizabethan audiences

Richard then gloats over his success in a soliloquy stating how he has won her heart even though he is regarded by her as the devil with dissembling looks and he stabbed Edward her love just 3 months earlier. This highlights how he thinks of himself as the best as he brags about his misdeeds as though he is immortal.

The ambition of the Machiavellian character King Richard III is viewed negatively in the world of Shakespeare compared to Pacino’s modern American society that sees ambition as a positive character trait. In Richard’s time, the idea of free will was questioned due to the belief in a one’ destiny, chosen by God. For this reason, a drive strive for power would have been unnatural and generally limited in Richard’s time. Shakespeare explores the clash between the values of conservative providential society and emerging ideas of free will thrugh the Machiavellian character of Richard This view of history doesn't see any kind of fate involved. Instead, it attributes the events of history to human actions. One of Richard’s first lines, “I am determined to prove a villain” eloquently demonstrates an idea of free will in a

      The attack of "conscience" that King Richard suffers in Act 5, Scene 5 of Shakespeare's Richard III (133-157) can be seen as the psychological climax of the drama, one that is critical to both Richard's development as a character and the play's ultimate success. Richard's struggle to reconcile the many different roles he attempts to play into one unified self, reflected in the tone and composition of his speech, adds depth and humanity to his character; at the same time, his ultimate failure to maintain his "self-made" identity simplifies the play in a way that allows the author to satisfy his audience by punishing the villain and reaffirming the world views that Richard's character

Losing the crown and being stripped of all his power is a great blow for Richard, but he continues to believe that God is going to protect him, and also his redemption through self-knowledge and an awakening of his human compassion are significant for his transition from being The King to an average man. It seems that in the end Richard transforms himself into another person, a man who is not the king anymore, and has to continue “searching” who he actually is. At the end of the play, after a reflective soliloquy and a “tender” moment, Richard finally takes bold action against his attackers and dies bravely. This is a slim attempt for making a tragic hero out of him, but it has not prevented Jan Kott's heady claim that "Just before being hurled

Richard knew what it was like to be king and to have his kingdom taken from him. He had power and he was always working to gain more power, but in the end, he lost it all. In result to Richard losing power, he has to hand over the crown to Henry. At this point, Henry now has gone from little power to ruling the kingdom. Henry’s son, Hal, also gets a taste of power. The power of Christ is also a focus that Shakespeare uses in his plays as he looks into the fate of each individual and how the power of God can change everything. Power and kingship have a great role regarding motives, in both Shakespeare’s plays, Richard II and Henry IV.

Richard is portrayed to manipulate other characters within the play, which conveys his Machiavellian ethics. This duplicitous nature is highlighted to the audience in the opening soliloquy, as he states “I am determined to prove a villain” and after his wooing of Lady Anne, as states in his aside to the audience, “I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long,” which is indicative of his true, evil motives. Thus, his usurpation of the throne is portrayed as a major disruption to the Elizabethan Chain of Being. Therefore, as a result of Richard’s disruption, it requires the divine intervention of God and other supernatural beings. This divine intervention is foreshadowed to the Elizabethan audience through Queen Margaret’s curse on Richard, as she states, “A murderous villain, and so still art thou.

“…every tale condemns me for a villain…” Shakespeare’s play Richard III illustrates how, by using the beliefs of his audience, he could portray the dangers of an unyielding lust for power through the portrayal of the manipulative character Richard, whose evil leads to the downfall of this “…bloody king…” Al Pacino’s docu-drama Looking for Richard is an interpretation of Richard III that presents Richard’s unbridled ambition in a project which recasts this tragedy’s ideas into a modern American political and psychoanalytical context. Shakespeare wrote Richard III to promote the Tudor Myth by presenting Richard as a tyrant whose rise and fall from kingship were largely due to his unbridled lust for power. Society’s perceptions of the way the

Throughout the book, arguments were made in order to prove that King Richard had no motive to kill his young nephews, although each argument surely could have a counter argument made by others.

Although it would be easy for the reader to find King Henry intolerable after learning he ordered the death of Richard, Shakespeare presents the King as honest and guilt-ridden about the murder of the previous King. King Henry proclaims, “Lords, I protest my soul is full of woe” (V. VI.45) and asks those around him to “Come, mourn with me for what I do lament” (V.VI.47). King Henry exudes remorse and self-condemnation, and these redeeming qualities put King Henry back into good graces with the reader. King Richard neither took responsibility nor showed regret for arranging Gloucester’s death. The Tragedy of King Richard the Second commences and concludes with the idea of a king mandating one’s murder; however, there is a sharp contrast between Richard and Henry. Richard fails to assume responsibility for his actions, while Shakespeare’s description of Henry’s contrition that redeems Henry’s character. In the midst of grieving his actions, Henry announces that he will “make a voyage to the Holy Land/ To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.” (V.VI.49-50) Shakespeare tweaked history by ending the play with the King leaving England for Jerusalem to renounce his guilt. In reality, the King embarked on the Crusades to kill infidels, not repent the death of a king ordained by God. Shakespeare not only ends the play with

King Richard iii is a well-known historical play written by William Shakespeare. From 1483 to 1485 Richard ruled over the land of England. Much misconceptions have been noted to actually describe what kind of ruler he was; whether he was a hero or a “tyrant” Shakespeare scrutinized Richard as a killer and a very evil person whose selfish ways got him to reign over his kingdom. Rather than using verifiable facts, his play was very much exaggerated. Shakespeare held up certain crimes against Richard that ruined his reputation.

King Richard II had a skewed view of his roles. He was unable to successfully balance his role as king with his role of a man. One cannot rule a kingdom properly without knowing both of these roles (Moseley, 2009). He had a public persona that led him to believe, falsely, that he was immortal; privately, he was fallible and immortal. King Richard II did not pay attention to the things happening around him (Attend, 2017). He felt he was only responsible to God. This caused him to feel more resentment towards people such as Bolingbroke because he felt Bolingbroke should not have had a say. Between King Richard’s unpredictable temperament and his complicated psychological state, his confusion about his roles because too much to overcome (Forker,

Even though King Richard the II’s boastfulness and wastefulness played a big part in his falling, vindictiveness was probably his biggest flaw. King Richard became greedy, wanting to control what was rightfully owed to Bolingbroke, the Lancastrian inheritance (Saul,1999). Without this, King Richard could remain king, if he offered the estate, instead he chose to give up the crown unwillingly. He was so busy trying to control all of the riches and pay back those he felt wronged him that he neglected those around him, eventually losing all respect from others. Some would say he was being paid back of his cruel ways. He wished all of those in his way dead or to be

Throughout the semester I have been able to read a few of Shakespeare’s plays. While reading Richard II I was stumped by parts of the play but by the second time reading through Richard II I knew that writing about this play was a challenge that I wanted to accept for the end of the semester. The play Richard II by Shakespeare is well written just as any of his other plays before. Each character in the play has a specific role or duty they play to try and illustrate the plot further. The themes that are included in the book such as the conflict between Richard and Henry help the readers understand the play more and get a better knowledge of the plot. The main characters, Richard, Henry, and the rest play a key role as the plot revolves around

Richard definitely had a lot of enemies and didn't care for for anyone but himself.All he care about was the power he gained and keeping that power. He shows this when he kills certain people that relate to the throne(edwardyv). It also shows that he has enemies by the way he died. It wasn't so much as how he dies but what happened to his body afterwards. His body showed that after he died people did horrible revenge to his deceased body(worldviews).