William Shakespeare's The Life And Death Of Richard The Second

Shakespeare’s and Pacino’s texts both depict Richard’s downfall due to his lack of conscience and virtues in his ambitious quest for power to reflect the beliefs of a Providential and secular society respectively. As such, Shakespeare's use of stichomythia and rhetorical question “Was ever woman in this humour wooed? Was ever woman in this humour won?” accentuates the lack of compassion and morality in Richard’s persuasive abilities to emotionally manipulate Anne to accept him as a suitor in his path to attain greatness. With Richard’s gratification of his achievement, Shakespeare illustrates the tyrant within Richard as his moral conscience diminishes due to over-ambition, hence reflecting the harsh Machiavellian politics in the Elizabethan era. Shakespeare’s underlying message on over-ambition is further exemplified through the dissolution of Richard’s unjust reign and mental stability through the death imagery in “It is now dead midnight. Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh. What do I fear? Myself?”. Richard’s unstable mind in the ghosts’ precession, encapsulates Shakespeare’s message of the ramifications of sacrilegious acts whilst asserting God’s divine retribution on any form of theomachy ambition. In accordance to Shakespeare’s illustration of the fall of man due to ambition,

Upon Richard's return to England, he learns of the events that had transpired in his absence. At first his own arrogance allows him to believe that since it is his God given right to rule as King, he will be protected. But then just as quickly, Richard's arrogance turns into despair upon the realization that Henry has gained support of the nobles and the people of England. Henry and Richard finally meet at Ramparts Castle leading to the climax of the play. Henry demands retribution for the allocation of his families' possessions and

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.

William Shakespeare’s Richard III is a historical play that focuses on one of his most famous and complex villainous characters. Richard III or The Duke of Gloucester, who eventually becomes king, is ambitious, bitter, ugly and deformed. He manipulates and murders his way to the throne and sets the tone for the whole play with his very first speech, which is the opening of the play.

    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

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

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

Shakespeare uses the short stage direction: “they fight; Richard is slain” followed by the animalistic and savage metaphor of “the bloody dog is dead” to convey Richard’s death. He uses animal imagery conveyed by Richmond along with the sudden and immediate death of Richard after he is willing to trade “a kingdom for a horse” to show his audience that God has carried out divine retribution due to Richard’s Machiavellian nature. Pacino transformed this scene so that it lead to a deeper understanding by his mainly secular 20th century audience. By undermining Richmond’s inglorious victory by having the soldiers shoot an arrow into Richard’s back, Pacino shows that Richard’s death was unfair. He also removed Richmond’s monologue to take the audience’s attention away from Richmond’s speech about god and the righteousness of divine retribution. Thus, by portraying conscience as being more important than divine retribution, Pacino transformed Shakespeare’s King Richard III to suit his context where Richard’s guilt killed

To establish the sinister intentions of Richard the actor, Shakespeare makes reference to his moral and physical impediments that leave him cursing “I that am not shaped for sportive tricks…I that am curtailed…”. Through the subtle use of anaphora and repetition of ‘I that am’, which is fleshed out by a definitive tone, the audience is made aware of how Richard is led ostensibly “to prove a villain” and thus, adopt a disguise. Moreover, Richard’s theatricality is stressed as he embarks as a ‘master’ of his own fate, for he perceives himself as “subtle, false, and treacherous”. His sinister intentions are exemplified by the use of tricolon, evocative word choice and short sentence patterning that create a sharp staccato effect. These intentions allow Shakespeare to subtly resonate Richard with the Vice from the medieval morality plays as well as the Renaissance Machiavelli who actively sought power, caused mischief, practised deceit and cynically gloats over his success. Moreover, Richard’s acting allows him to confide in his audience as he is paradoxically honest about his dishonesty, whilst also encouraging his audience not to detest him, but rather, take delight in his cleverness as the ‘director’ of the play. Thus, the opening soliloquy of Richard III offers an insight into how Richard manipulates the

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.

He is arrogant no less, on the strength of his superiority to any natural stirrings of love or pity, of terror or remorse. Richard’s true fall and punishment is his humiliation on his point of reliance and pride; he comes to require friends when friends fail in heart or in heartiness, he regrets affection, would fain be pitied, admits terror, and believes in the power of conscience if he endeavors to defy it. The involuntary forces of his being rise in insurrection against the oppression of the voluntary. His human nature vindicates the tendencies of humanity, when the organism, which was strained to sustain itself on the principle of renunciation of sympathy, falters and breaks down. The power of the strongest will have its limitations; mere defiance will not free the mind from superstition, and mere brutality cannot absolutely close up the welling springs of

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's psychological isolation is conveyed through his lack of conscience in his murderous acts. Nowhere does he feel remorse for his murders, until Act V scene iii when he exclaims "Have mercy Jesu!" and "O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!". In this turning point, Richard's division from his own self is made clear from "I and I", and "Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am!" He has conflicting views of himself and realizes that "no creature" loves him, not even himself. We also never know the "real" mind of Richard, for he is always playing a role, of a loving brother to Clarence, a lover to Anne or a victim to the others. We feel sympathy for Richard as he awakes in a vulnerable position and for the first time acknowledges the evil that he has done. But as he only reveals his feelings of guilt in the last act of the play, we do not see him in internal turmoil and thus the sense of psychological tragedy cannot be built upon.