Moral Ambiguity Exposed In Shakespeare's Richard III

Both William Shakespeare’s play “Richard III” and Al Pacino’s docudrama “Looking for Richard” explore the timeless themes of Richards’s pursuit of power and the impacts of his villainous and evil nature. Shakespeare’s Elizabethan context is far different from the humanist and secular context of Pacino. Shakespeare highlights the importance of the church and the divine right to rule of monarchs within Richards’s pursuit of power and downfall; this is not relevant within Pacino’s contemporary times. Hence Pacino employs this key theme to reframe the play's focus from divine rule to political power whilst still exploring Richards’s achievement of this power. Through his portrayal of King Richard, Shakespeare creates a character meant to be hated by his audience who were familiar with the Tudor myth.

Moreover, Richard’s multifaceted nature in his determination to attain power is further accentuated through the striking metaphor “And thus I clothe my naked villainy …And seem a saint, when most I play the devil.”, which Shakespeare employs to represent Richard as an embodiment of absolute evil and amorality. Hence, the Shakespearean audience becomes aware of the destruction of Richard’s moral compass as he sacrifices the value of honesty in his ambitious plan to gain power and engage in sacrilegious acts to create his own fate. Comparatively, Pacino reshapes the downfall of Richard as a result of his ambition for power to reflect the secular perspective of free will and aspiration. As such, Pacino’s reimagining of the opening soliloquy with a mid shot of Pacino leaning over the sick King Edward effectively encapsulates the control Richard possesses, which allows him to deceive the king and maneuver his way

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, is a timeless play which continues to remain relevant across all generations due to its presentation of ideas that are fundamental to humanity. The play highlights aspects that relate to the society of not only Elizabethan England but also that of our modern society. Hamlet, as a character, considers ideas from outside his time and is somewhat relatable to modern day man. By drawing from ideas of archetypes and the human psyche, it reveals that Hamlet relates deeply to the elements of humanity.

    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.

Richard III is seen as a monster and a horrible person, but why? What if people saw him differently or if his family treated him equally like others? Also nobody wants to love an ugly hunchback. This is how Richard is treated in the play. He despises everybody including God and all of is creations so he decides to conquer the land and become King of England.

Richard’s aspiration for power caused him to sacrifice his morals and loyalties in order to gain the throne of England. Shakespeare refers to the political instability of England, which is evident through the War of the Roses between the Yorks and Lancastrians fighting for the right to rule. In order to educate and entertain the audience of the instability of politics, Shakespeare poses Richard as a caricature of the Vice who is willing to do anything to get what he wants. As a result, the plans Richard executed were unethical, but done with pride and cunningness. Additionally, his physically crippled figure that was, “so lamely and unfashionable, that dogs bark at me as I halt by them,” reflects the deformity and corruption of his soul. The constant fauna imagery of Richard as the boar reflected his greedy nature and emphasises that he has lost his sense of humanity.

William Shakespeare's historical tragedies offer a window of insight into the human dramas that underscored the affairs of nobleman. These tragedies tended to bring personification to courtly disputes, wars between kingdoms and battles for succession. In the case of Richard the Second (or Richard II), which is estimated to have been produced in 1595 and which gave prequel to the trilogy of plays regarding two King Henry's, Shakespeare composed a tragedy which included all three of the above dimensions. Indeed, captured most directly in the conflict engulfing the story's two lead characters, Shakespeare's play gives insight into the difficult cross-section of pride, duty and honor. These forces come into violent conflict as tensions mount and lead to confrontation between King Richard II and Henry Bolingbroke.

In this play, there is a noticeable difference between the natural way in which humans want to act against what is considered natural in society. Elements of society cause the characters to be able to justify unnatural actions. Shakespeare thoroughly laces this play with the concept of humans are neither good nor evil by nature.

Through the incertitude that plagues virtually every major character in Hamlet (1603), Shakespeare dramatizes humanity’s philosophical quandaries of morality and action in an imbalanced, bleak society. Drawing upon the contextual zeitgeist of the Renaissance, Shakespeare examines humanity’s ontological quest to ascertain truth in foregrounding thematic undercurrents of the conflation between appearance and reality. Shakespeare substantiates the misguided struggles and existential disillusionment of the human condition, by drawing upon the incompatible dualities of the value systems of Medieval Europe and of Renaissance philosophy. Shakespeare delves deep into elements of the human experience and thus Hamlet retains textual integrity, resounding

Shakespeare uses dramatic irony to further demonise Richard’s character, “from blood to blood, your right of birth, your empery, your own.” Demonising him through his physically deformed and twisted appearance and corrupted soul. Shakespeare uses strong imagery to portray Richard as a religious man, enabling him to gain power therefore conveying the rejection of Elizabethan’s Christian morals. Through his unethical and scheming cleverness, he acquires temporary power only to tarnish his reputation forever in history, as he dies alone and unloved.

In this paper, we will discuss the themes of redemption, moral truths and a just society and their correlation to the play Hamlet written by Shakespeare. The setting of this play is in the late middle ages where most of the story is taking place at a castle in Denmark. A large part of this plays theme is tied into what most would consider justice and others might consider revenge.

William Shakespeare’s dramatic presentation of disillusionment within Hamlet, to a great measure presents the notion that the quality of a leader is derived from one’s possession of integrity. Hamlet’s disillusionment which emerges from the discovery of Claudius’ regicide and the usurpation of his father’s divine position, produces a plethora of human dilemmas, such as the moral struggle between renaissance and medieval ideologies, the paralysing effect of uncertainty and the defining nature of mortality. Thus by exploring the universal complexity of human condition and its ability withhold integrity, Shakespeare connects to audiences of various historical contexts.

One of the themes that Shakespeare plays within his tragedies is the imbalance of order and disorder, dealing specifically with morality. In The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark or simply Hamlet is about the titular character contemplating killing his uncle after King Hamlet’s ghost tells Hamlet that he had been poisoned by Claudius. The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice tells the story of Othello being manipulated by Iago into believing that his wife is having an affair with Cassio. Even though these plays deal with different subjects such as love and revenge, they are similar as both Hamlet and Othello, as the heroes, attempt to fix this disorder in morality (Hamlet’s Uncle killing the King and Othello’s wife ‘cheating’ on him). Yet due to their tragic flaws, Hamlet and Othello have become the villains because they have fueled the disorder within themselves as well as with the people in their lives. In the end, the only way that moral order is restored by the deaths of the protagonists and every other person that has been affected by this disorder.

William Shakespeare sets the play as one involving cases of injustice, scheming, revenge and death. The play is basically a blood bath, where all the main characters end up dying in the most gruesome manner. Hamlet the prince feels that he has been double crossed and his throne stolen away from him by Claudius who murders Prince Hamlets father to take the throne from the king and marries Hamlets mother, Gertrude. This becomes the beginning of a series of deaths that continue to take place throughout the play. Hamlet is haunted by the dead king’s ghost who seeks justice for his killing by Claudius. Hamlet confirms Claudius as the culpable killer through careful scheming and becomes held bent on having his revenge on the man that takes away all he is entitled to as the heir to the throne in Denmark. The ghost requires the prince hamlet to avenge its death, which serves as a key motivator for him, especially after he learns that what the ghost claims is indeed authentic. This paper will analyze Hamlet’s moral philosophy of justice as his general approach to life.

In tragedies of William Shakespeare, themes and characteristic concerns of the author with human nature emerge through a number of dramatic devices and defining features of his characters (Randell 1976). The supernatural, then, in the form of ghosts, visions, strange occurrences or witches, serves as one of these dramatic techniques, presenting an underlying characteristic of several Shakespeare's plays.This essay is going to discuss The Tragedy of Macbeth (1623) and The Tragedy of Julius Caesar (1623), and their depictions of the supernatural, suggesting ways in which this feature is used and explored. It will be investigated how characters and their deeds relate to the supernatural, and what is revealed about human actions, their causes and implications. Thus, on the one hand, this text will explore the supernatural as a defining feature that goes against established order, from social stratification to societal understanding of evil. On the other hand, it will be argued that, in fact, Shakespeare's supernatural elements move beyond the categories of good and evil, and tell the audience something about human nature, as well as laws of the natural world that may very well incorporate the concept of supernatural. Hence, it will be postulated that the idea of 'unnatural' suggests a further ambiguity between heroes and villains, free will and destiny, or nature and