Richard As A Tragic Hero In Jan Kott's The Awakening

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

It is only during his deposition and his imprisonment that Richard shows his greatest strength as a dramatic figure. Although occasionally he seems to demonstrate self-pity, he also reveals himself to have an acute awareness of the ironies and absurdities in the structure of power of his kingdom. He still compels the court to reconsider his initial claim that the crown is divinely appointed: “Not all the water… can wash the balm of an anointed king (3.2.55)”. Although he keeps reminding those present of his God-given mandate to rule, he seems also to take pleasure in passing on the trails of kingship to his successor. As a King, He does have a God-given position of being the king. But as a king one should know the difference between moral values and ethics values. Just because Richard is King and is appointed by God doesn’t give him any rights to be an awful ruler. He can’t always fight a problem by saying that he is

Since Richard cannot do anything about his deformity and ugliness he turns his bitterness to ambition and lays the groundwork for his plan to betray King Edward IV. Richard tells the audience, “plots have I laid, inductions dangerous, by drunken prophecies, libels and dreams, to set my brother Clarence and the King in deadly hate against the other; and if King Edward be as true and just as I am subtle, false, and treacherous, this day should Clarence closely be mewed up, about a prophecy, which says that G OF Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be” (1.1.32-40). In these lines, Richard reveals his plan that he will turn Clarence and King Edward against each other so Edward will banish Clarence to the tower because he believes Clarence will be his murderer. Richard will do this through declaring a prophecy that this will be so. Richard explains that this will work because King Edward is as just as Richard is treacherous and Richard will use that against King Edward to cause his and Clarence’s demise. It is not known whether the character Richard would have revealed more about his plan this early in the play because he is interrupted by Clarence. Richard ends the speech with the lines, “dive thoughts down to my soul, here Clarence comes” (1.1.41), which basically means that he better keep

Throughout Shakespeare’s Richard III, King Richard strives to gain and keep the power of kingship to himself. He is often described as a Machiavellian character due to his cunning, narcissistic personality. However, he does not display all of the characteristics required of a Machiavellian ruler. Richard is unable to retain his power, being killed by Richmond soon after his own coronation. The fatal flaws that leads to Richards demise is that he retains his religious beliefs, lacks the fear of his peer/followers, and fails to use his deputies properly, unlike a true Machiavellian.

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

Throughout the play, it seems as if Richard’s conscience takes a backseat to all of his evil deeds. While reading, one cannot help but muse as to whether King Richard is so purely evil that he has no conscience. This thought may be abated in some forms in act V. In this act, all of the people that King Richard has killed, or ordered to be killed, parade through a dream of his, condemning him with the phrase “despair and die”. Though dreams in Shakespeare have a foreboding quality, this particular dream of Richard’s may serve as his conscience starting to rear its ugly head.

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.

Richard elects for a physical death as a means to free himself and Clarissa from his illness. Like Laura, he views the sum of his life's work as completely unsuccessful. He feels as if he has wasted precious time writing about things that are not important to his society. Suicide is never far from his mind, because for him death represents the chance to finally make a decision that will have the significant benefit of ending both his and Clarissa's suffering. Really, his suicide signifies an end to a death that has been occurring for along period time. In his death, Richard finds ultimate freedom: "He seems so certain, so serene . . . . He lies where he fell, face down, the robe thrown up over his head and his bare legs exposed, white against the dark concrete" (200). Finally, Richard exposes all of his inner feelings and thoughts through this act; he no longer masquerades them in the guise of a literary work. Now, others can understand the magnitude of his interior conflicts, and that he does not

Oftentimes, “The Tragedy of King Richard the Second” leaves many readers skeptical about its classification as a tragedy. Though the play itself is named after King Richard and the story follows his downfall, Richard can barely qualify as a “hero” and even his standing as the true protagonist can be scrutinized in favor of Bolingbroke. In fact, the play’s classification as a tragedy is only true in the technical, literary sense, and up until the scene of Richard’s murder, it is difficult to sympathize with his downfall at all. Richard’s character does not meet the criteria of emotional growth that is common in most tragic characters. While he is able to reflect on his pitiable performance as king, Shakespeare fails to portray Richard as a sympathetic character with true growth, and, consequently, Richard remains too juvenile to reject self-justification.

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.

Richard kills his own brother because he feels it is necessary if he is going to take the throne, and to hide his motives he is quite adept at putting up facades of love. Early on in the play Richard is talking to his brother Clarence regarding his imprisonment, telling him that “...your imprisonment shall not be long. I will deliver you or else lie for you...simple, plain clarence, I do love thee so that i will shortly send thy soul to heaven” (Richard-I. i. 117-23). To prevent Clarence from interfering with his elaborate plan to steal the throne, he is going to kill him. Richard emphasizes his lack of morality by doing whatever he deems necessary to take the throne, with no regard to who he has to kill. By appearing to be a loving brother, he takes suspicion off of himself for when Clarence is killed. When the murderers Richard hires to kill Clarence

The Awakening was a very exciting and motivating story. It contains some of the key motivational themes that launched the women’s movement. It was incredible to see how women were not only oppressed, but how they had become so accustomed to it, that they were nearly oblivious to the oppression. The one woman, Edna Pontellier, who dared to have her own feelings was looked upon as being mentally ill. The pressure was so great, that in the end, the only way that she felt she could be truly free was to take her own life.  In this paper I am going to concentrate on the characters central in Edna’s life and her relationships with them.

From this passage the audience can tell that Richard has learned the error of his ways. Richard realizes that he has wronged all the people of his

He is far from the same man he was at the beginning of the play, because he claimed to become a villain but at this point of the play he has done exactly that. He has progressed and developed further as the play’s villain protagonist, after all of the deceptive plotting, manipulating and executing his own allies and family Richard has sucessfully proved himself in becoming a villain and even declares “I am a villain” to himself. Richard also acknowledges that despite his fears, he has gone too far in his Machievellian endeavors to become king and despite wanting to run away, there is no going back. He still displays self-hatred in this Act, only the self-hatred he shows in Act 5 is completely different from his self-hatred in the very beginning of Act 1. He hated himself because everyone else avoided him because of his deformities, but now he hates and fears himself because now everyone is avoiding him because of his evildoings and

To fully become Richard in my piece I undertook a close textual analysis of the play in which he features, noting any lines that exemplified his character. From this, and research into the real monarch, I created a character profile and gleaned a thorough understanding of my role.