Richard III Monologue Essay

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

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.

While on his deathbed in Act Two, Scene One of Richard II, John of Gaunt makes an important speech about his love for England, and his disdain for Richard’s ruinous acts as King. There are several pauses that, if worked into Gaunt’s speech, would help to show the significance of Gaunt’s words. Throughout this speech Shakespeare uses metaphors, vivid imagery, rhetorical terms, and powerful word choice in order to intensify Gaunt’s words, and amplify the different messages within Gaunt’s speech.

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

    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.

Shakespeare’s Richard III, is filled with desires and determination to achieve and fulfill ambition. Shakespeare uses the power of language to explicate Richard’s manipulative ways to fulfill his desires of becoming king, thus doing so by bringing darkness to the content world of others. According to Anderson’s article The Death of a Mind: Study of Shakespeare’s Richard III Richard’s state of mind is oriented around imposing “dark shadows over the positive dispositions of the others’ lives” (Anderson 701); he works at spreading destruction and grievance to those around him. Throughout the play Richard is in his own state of mind, with his main focus on the crown. Act I scene ii, illustrates Richard’s power and manipulative ways through language in order to gain advantage and gain a step forward in achieving the crown. The dialogue between Richard and Lady Anne at King Henry’s funeral exemplifies his manipulation when he uses charming and charismatic words to obtain her attention. Throughout this essay I will agree with Anderson’s point that Richard’s manipulative ploy is a means of fulfilling his ambition. This essay will explicate how Richard manipulates and uses the power of language to exemplify what his deranged state of mind can do to unsuspecting and naive minds. Lady Anne, her character at the beginning of the scene is distressed and angered, however as the scene progresses, Richard’s dialogue with Lady Anne begins to illustrate her naive mind and weak character

In Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Prince Hamlet serves as one of the most multi-faceted characters in the entire play with critics often deeming his personality “paradoxical”. Ultimately, Hamlet provides the audience with the epitomy of internal contrast and instability by rapidly transitioning through periods of caution and rash action, introversion and extroversion and calculation and spontaneity.

The language of Shakespeare connects both King Richard III & Looking for Richard, enriching the significance of each & enabling both to provide continuous meaning for a range of contexts. The apparently outdated language of Shakespeare is given new life for the modern context, enabling audiences to better understand the original text & thus elevating the play. The film Looking for Richard, through rehearsals of actors, cuts between scholars and ‘random’ people on the street,

This derives from the play as a recount of historical events with a known outcome and a medium for propaganda in support of the monarchy, an avid determinist. Nevertheless, the aforementioned tension is prevalent throughout and epitomised by the paradoxical pun ‘I am determined to prove a villain’. Uttered with a tone of poise and self-assuredness, the term ‘determined’ implies a conscious statement of purpose and a preordained villainy. Thus Richard is aligned with the stock character of the Vice, an instrument of predestination, and the innovative Machiavel, an advocator of humanism. Despite this, the ultimate decline of Richard is consequential of the reign of determinism. The directly antithetic correctio ‘I am a villain. Yet I lie, I am not’ yields an implicit self-doubt and acknowledgment of an inability to fulfil his humanist purpose. Providentialism thus displays precedence over self-determination. This is in direct contrast to Pacino’s docudrama, composed for a secular modern American audience disengaged with traditional notions of determinism. A greatly diminished and altered portrayal of Margaret, the primary instrument of determinism in the play, is expressive of this. Pacino devalues her curses by reducing her to a ‘sort of ghost of the past’. A frenzied montage of informative discourse and the activity of the play complete with

Shakespeare’s King Richard III and Al Pacino’s 1996 documentary ‘Looking for Richard’ enhance a deeper understanding of ambition and identity through depicting explicit connections between each text and their audience. Enhancement of each text is gained through differing contexts and text types which are presented through literary and cinematic techniques. Both composers use anachronisms to parallel beliefs and values such as ambition and identity which transcend both contexts.

* Shakespeare shows the journey in Richard III of Richard himself on his dark quest to becoming king by both using his literary skills and performance to attain what he wants, ultimately being power.

Texts are shaped by their compositional context and thus offer new insights about the composer’s era. However, as there are ongoing concerns of humanity, key ideologies resonate over time and are affirmed between texts as shown in William Shakespeare’s play ‘King Richard III’ (1591) and Al Pacino’s docudrama ‘Looking For Richard’ (1996). King Richard III examines the irrational behaviours and moral ramifications of a power lust Richard to explore ideas of the relentless pursuit of power, betrayal and deceit, reflective of the theocentric context of the Elizabethan society. Centuries later, Looking For Richard explores Pacino’s journey to reshape a Shakespearean text that is representative of the changing contextual norms and values of a contemporary American audience who are confused and sceptical about the relevance of Shakespeare’s plays. Both texts provide an image of Richard’s deceit reflective of their distinctive contexts. However, despite the disparity of time, both texts display how key ideas such as deceit, endure and resonate over time.

The pursuit of individual recognition in the form of power and authority remains intrinsic in texts despite the change in contexts. This is evident in William Shakespeare’s 16th century play, King Richard III and Al Pacino’s 19th century docu-drama, Looking for Richard. Both texts explore that the pursuit of individual recognition can be initiated by an individual’s flaw in character caused by the corruption of their sense of morality in order to gain power. This is depicted through the malicious and treacherous nature of the central character, Richard in both texts. There are central ideas conveyed in these texts, including the nature of authority, the acquisition of power and the significant impact determinism plays in one’s decisions and actions. However, due to the difference in cultural context, Pacino reshapes these values to make Shakespeare accessible to a modern day audience. As a result, Pacino sequentially follows the plot of King Richard III in order to emphasise the relevance of Shakespeare’s plays in a modern society. Pacino addresses this through an emphasis on film techniques instead of dramatic techniques. Therefore, it is evident that the comparative study of these texts allows the responder to appreciate the connection between contexts and values, allowing the responder to reflect upon their own society’s concerns.

In this selected soliloquy, Shakespeare’s unique sense of voice is exercised in a form that evokes multiple dimensions of emotion. Not only is there the overlying element of displeasure, but an additional tone of vengefulness and uncertainty within his certainty. This is aided by implementing phrases