Richard III

The primary purpose of the scrivener in Shakespeare's Richard III is to draw the audience's attention to how corrupt things have become in light of Richard's machinations. Without knowing that...

In Shakespeare's Richard III, Richard (called Gloucester throughout much of the play) is a singular character in a number of ways. From the very first act, Richard is portrayed as a physically...

Good literature rarely offers simplistic moral lessons. Instead, Richard III by William Shakespeare is a historical drama that vividly portrays the War of the Roses and gives an audience a complex...

Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is bored. By the time Richard was eighteen or nineteen years old, he was leading troops into battle and gaining victories for his brother, Edward, King of England,...

In act 3, scene 3, Rivers and Gray, the queen's kinsmen, and Sir Thomas Vaughan, their friend, all die offstage. Their deaths are only confirmed in act 4, scene 4, when Margaret exclaims that they...

Like much of Shakespeare's verse, this line has multiple nuances. Richard suffers from a birth defect that makes him a hunchback. As a result, he grows up feeling belittled and unappreciated....

Of the values listed—integrity, honesty, loyalty, and moderation—the protagonist, Richard himself, exhibits none. What's more, he tells us in his opening soliloquy that he isn't going to: "I am...

This particular Shakespeare play is quite long. Consequently, it explores a variety of themes. I am unsure as to which theme this question is pointing toward. The line in question appears near the...

This is an excellent observation, and it is key to note Shakespeare's accomplishment in creating a truly villainous character that nevertheless manages to engage us and draws us as an audience to...

Shakespeare's point in using the word "conscience" so many times in Richard III is that the word lends itself to so many subtleties of meaning, some of which meanings have nothing whatsoever to do...

Queen Margaret has a small role in the play, but she is important in representing all the powerless people who have been hurt by Richard III and in general by the bloodshed and disruption caused by...

a) Tyrrell's soliloquy highlights the themes of good versus evil, ambition, and the corrupting influence of power. The monologue marks a turning point in the story. In having the young princes...

As with every historical play that Shakespeare produced, Richard III contains an array of characters, some with several titles, and so it can be difficult to keep track of who's who in British...

The opening scenes of the play tell us a lot about Richard's character. And that character—wicked, scheming and insanely ambitious—is expressed through Richard's numerous soliloquies. The House of...

In Shakespeare's King Richard III, Richard, Duke of Gloucester (later King Richard III) is portrayed as a diabolical serial murderer, but this shouldn't detract from the fact that Richard is also a...

In Act Three, scene i, the first of the two times that Margaret appears in Richard III, by William Shakespeare, Queen Margaret is furious and vengeful. Margaret is the widow of Henry VI (...who...

In Richard III, Richard uses a variety of tactics to achieve his ultimate goal, the English throne. His tactics vary primarily according to the characters with which he interacts. Shortly after...

The Scrivener is an important minor character in Richard III. Formally, the Scrivener's role is to draw up documents. But in relation to the play, his dramatic role is to provide a running...

Richard is a case study of pshchological evil; he is clearly a villain and makes his wicked intentions clear in every speech. However, at the same time, he is also the protagonist of the play and...

When Richmond personifies the sun as "weary" he is indicating that it is almost time for the sun to set. The sun is "weary," or tired, because it has been up all day. This is Shakespeare's way of...

The female characters in Richard III are mainly members of the royalty and nobility. The queens in particular are extremely important for their functions as wives and mothers of current and future...

The issue at the opening of the play is who has sent Hastings to prison, rather than what he was imprisoned for. This is an important distinction, as it emphasizes the political nature of being...

This key scene at Bosworth Field presages the end of Richard. It both creates a tense, pre-battle atmosphere as it begins with the leaders’ preparations and an eerie atmosphere through the...

I am not so sure that this question is about theme, rather it appears to be about character, and the presentation of women and children in this excellent play. Clearly, the most important children...

In medias res is Latin for "in the middle of things." A story that begins in medias res typically starts off with a bang, so to speak. The audience is thrown into the action right away with the...

Hastings spends much of the scene bragging to the others that he knows Richard "loves [him] well," and that he can decipher Richard's mood and looks. His speech which begins at line 48 is all...

In act 4, scene 4 of William Shakespeare's Richard III, it appears that Richard III is trying to seduce Queen Elizabeth, his brother Edward's widow. Richard uses essentially the same technique on...

Richard's worst crime in one sense was being Richard. Think about it: the famous murder of the Princes in the Tower was never proved, and a powerful but upstart royal house - the Tudors - had...

"Richard" is a 2015 poem written by Scottish poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy, in honor of one of Britain’s most well-known kings—Richard III. The king’s bones were found 500 years after his death at...

In Shakespeare's Richard III, Clarence and Buckingham both trust Richard, who repays this trust by having them killed. Clarence, who has only a small part at the beginning of the play, is portrayed...

The changes in context make the women's voices in Looking for Richard have much more agency than the characters in Richard III. Richard III doesn't have a lot of female characters who aren't...

Great question - and one central to the play. Traditionally, Richard has been seen as a Vice figure (and indeed, he himself makes the comparison in 3.1 - to 'the formal Vice, Iniquity')....

To argue for an interpretation of a major aspect of the play Richard III, settle on a specific critical framework and provide evidence that supports the selected theory. If one goes with a...

And therefore since I cannot prove a lover/To entertain these fair well-spoken days,/I am determined to prove a villain/And hate the idle pleasures of these days. Straight from the villain's...

First and foremost, it must be remembered that Shakespeare was a playwright, not a historian. For dramatic purposes he took liberties with history. For example, he had Richard a young man in the...

The way Richard manipulates Lady Anne helps us to see what type of person Richard is and just how capable he is of attaining whatever it is he wants. There is no compassion, no love, and no...

Feminist, psychoanalytical, and queer criticism of the play Richard III could focus on Richard’s body, his schemes to become king, or Lady Anne. The play opens with Richard, Duke of Gloucester,...

The claim that the ultimate standard for good and evil in Richard III is transcendent is best supported by the fact that all Richard's evil deeds punish the sins of those around him without...

Richard III is delightfully, gleefully straightforward about what his ultimate goal is. He tells us right at the beginning of his play (in fact, he tells us at the end of the last play he appears...

Richard III is a historical play presumably written in 1593 by famed English playwright, poet, and actor William Shakespeare. The plot centers on the rise and fall of Richard III—Duke of Gloucester...

Two men are sent by Gloucester to dispatch his brother, the Duke of Clarence. They are known only as “First Murderer” and “Second Murderer” and they have the kind of comic repartee that Shakespeare...

In this scene, the atmosphere is most a consequence of suddenness. Richard's behavior changes completely when informed of the loyalty to the princes. The change suggests instability to the...

Although Shakespeare presents Richard III as being physically deformed, modern historians doubt whether this was true. Nevertheless, in the play, he is presented this way and it is intimated that...

Anthony Woodville, the Earl Rivers, appears in Richard III as a supporter of the Royal Lineage, and is killed to keep the young Prince Edward off the throne. Anthony Woodville has few lines in the...

The play opens with a soliloquy by Richard, Duke of Gloucester. He tells himself--and his audience--that peace has settled on the land and everybody is happy except himself. He describes himself as...

DUCHESS.So many miseries have craz'd my voiceThat my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.--Edward Plantagenet, why art thou dead? QUEEN MARGARET.Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet,Edward for...