Richard III

In Shakespeare's Richard III, eleven ghosts appear in both Richard and Richmond's dreams the night before the battle. Each one of the ghosts had been murdered by Richard: Prince Edward, King Henry...

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...

Al Pacino's 1996 documentary Looking for Richard features famous actors playing out scenes from Richard III interspersed with man-on-the-street interviews, scholarly analysis, and commentary by the...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

Well, first of all, there are many themes in Shakespeare's King Richard the Third: war, justice, manipulation, betrayal, fate, appearance vs. reality, etc. However, since you asked specifically...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 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...

"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...

The climax occurs when the battle at Bosworth Field goes badly. Richard's followers desert him. Richard has sought to rule by usurping the crown by seducing Lady Anne after claiming to have...

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...

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')....

I think the short answer to your question is "to build tension". Remember that the audience already know that Clarence is going to be murdered - we've seen Richard in an earlier scene...

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...

Shakespeare did not hesitate to attribute Richard III’s dark nature – as depicted in this influential play, if not necessarily in reality – to his physical deformities. In fact, the play’s opening...

In Act I, scene four of Shakespeare's Richard III, Richard has outwardly arranged to pardon his brother Clarence (who he secretly took steps to have arrested and put in the Tower of London), while...

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...

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 dictionary defines Machiavellian as follows: "being or acting in accordance with the principles of government analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince,in which political expediency is placed above...

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...

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...

One of the central actions that occur in this final scene is the execution of Buckingham, which in itself raises a number of very interesting themes that dominate the play. Note the way that as he...

In writing a thesis statement for anything, the content always depends on your position or opinion. Because I do not know how you feel about Lady Anne in Shakespeare's Richard III, I can only...

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...

One clear way in which kingship is presented and discussed in this play is through the presentation of the common people and their feelings and thoughts about the violence amongst the ruling...

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...

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...

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...

Shakespeare’s Richard III displays many of the themes common to revenge tragedy. It has a villain who exhibits a dramatic extreme of evil who is obsessed with revenge against the society that...

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...

Richard's body count piles up in Act 3, as it will continue to do so for the rest of the play. Rivers, Gray, Vaughan, and finally Hastings all bite the dust. And why? Because none of them will...