SOURCE: Hugenberg, Sr., Lawrence W. and Mark J. Schaefermeyer. “Soliloquy as Self-Disclosure: The Soliloquies of Richard III.” Quarterly Journal of Speech 69, no. 2 (May 1983): 180-87.

[In the following excerpt, Hugenberg and Schaefermeyer consider the soliloquies of Richard of Gloucester in Henry VI, Part 3 (III.iii) and Richard III (I.i and I.iii) in terms of communication theory. They conclude that these monologues represent forthright speech that clearly reveals Richard's motivations, his goals, and his strategies.]

In William Shakespeare's historical plays, Richard, Duke of Gloucester, later to become Richard III, rationalizes his actions in relation to his image of himself. He reveals data about his character as early as 3 Henry VI, the play preceding Richard III.

Then, since the heavens have shap'd my body so,
Let hell make crook'd my mind to answer it.

(3HVI V,vi,78f)

Richard's soliloquies are disclosures directed to the self as particular audience while the audience witnessing the drama is a representative universal audience. Richard addresses himself and his audience. As the audience, we are “performers” in the drama, and the parts played are determined by the nature of the drama.¹ Similarly, members of Richard's audience become performers and are allowed to overhear Richard's soliloquies as self-disclosure. In The Shakespearean Kings, Bromley observes that Richard “is totally himself only when alone with his audience.”² Speaking about the opening soliloquy of Richard III, Brooke argues, “This is not, however, soliloquy in the sense of the speaker talking to himself, it is an address to the audience, not so much taking them into his confidence as describing himself.”³ Richard's soliloquies may have been only a device to allow the audience to know his inner thoughts (a form of self-disclosure), but the effect is the same as if Richard were consciously speaking directly to the audience.

One illustration of the soliloquies as self-disclosure by Richard III occurs in the third act of 3 Henry VI. In the space of seventy-one lines, he reveals his feelings about his disfigured body and his plan to ascend the throne.

Why, love forswore me in my mother's womb;
And, for I should not deal in her soft laws,
She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe
To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub;
To make an envious mountain on my back,
Where sits deformity to mock my body;
To shape my legs of an unequal size;
To disproportion me in every part,

(3HVI III,ii,153f)

Richard III is bitter that he is unable to love or be loved because of his deformity.⁴ He believes he has been victimized by Fortune and while the audience should not agree with Richard's means, they will be in a better position to understand them.⁵ It is this victimization which seemingly forces Richard, in his own eyes, to plot and murder his way to the crown:

And am I then a man to be beloved?
O monstrous fault to harbor such a thought.
Then, since this earth affords no joy to me
But to command, to check, to o'erbear such
As are of better person them myself,
I'll make my heaven to dream upon the crown.

(3HVI III,ii,163f)

Two subsequent soliloquies reiterate Richard's perceived shortcomings (Henry VI (V,vi,61-93) and Richard III (I,i,1-41)). They illustrate the essential characteristic of self-disclosure: allowing the self to be known, not only to the self but also to the audience. Richard continually reaffirms the motivations for his behaviors to himself, and in turn to the audience.⁶

Although Richard addresses himself in the soliloquies, he also reveals to the audience motives for his behaviors. Motivations pull one way or another and make us explain to ourselves and others why we went the way we did.⁷ Richard reveals all: his motivations, his plans, and his rational, yet passionate, reasons for his actions.

I, that am curtailed of this fair proportion,
Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,
Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time
Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,
And that so lamely and unfashionable
That dogs bark at me as I halt by them—

(RIII I,i,18f)

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villian
And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

(RIII I,i,28f)

He discloses so much, so quickly, that by the end of the second scene in Richard III, the audience knows virtually all that there is to know about him.

As previously noted, some disclosures may be an attempt on the part of the communicator to hide her or his true self, while honest self-disclosure reveals that true self. Honest disclosure can be measured by the communicator's later behavior in fulfilling the statements made while disclosing. Richard never wavers from his ultimate goal, that of becoming King of England.

And, whiles I live, t'account the world but hell
Until my misshaped trunk that bears this head
Be round impaled with a glorious crown.

(3HVI III,ii,169f)

What is most important is that Richard eventually attempts all he has planned and revealed in his disclosing soliloquies. Although attempting to satisfy revealed motivations is consummate to honest self-disclosures, the attainment of goals and revealed motivations is the goal of Richard.

What does Richard gain by self-disclosing his self-perception and motivations? Possible results include sympathy, approval/support, self-evaluation and/or personal satisfaction. One major gain concerns his self-perceived role. Duncan argues, “Soliloquy is often an expression of conflict among ‘outer’ roles, an individual struggle to confront, and, hopefully, to resolve contradictions and incongruities.”⁸ An individual stating his dilemmas in soliloquy asks the audience to face the disrelationships currently being faced.⁹ Richard is forced to play the role nature has given him. He does not rationalize his actions, which the audience would be less likely to approve, as much as he plays out the hand he perceives Fortune has dealt him.

For I have often heard my mother say
I came into this world with my legs forward.
Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste
And seek their ruin that usurped our right?
The midwife wondered, and the women cried
“O, Jesus bless us! He is born with teeth!”
And so I was; which plainly signified
That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.

(3HVI V,vi,70f)

Self-disclosure is a vehicle for Richard's affirmation of his role. Another benefit from his disclosures is self-evaluation. Richard rids himself of the obstacles in his way to becoming king. It is crucial to Richard that he succeed in the difficult task he initially sets for himself. Richard cannot be the “lover” the “lustful Edward” is, but he can affirm his consistency of purpose which self-evaluation reinforces.

And so, I say, I'll cut the causes off;
Flattering me with impossibilities.

(3HVI III,ii,142f)

Plots have I laid, inductions dangerous,
By drunken prophecies, libels, and dreams,
To set my brother Clarence and the king
In deadly hate the one 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.

(RIII I,i,32f)

Richard has no reason to distrust himself because he clearly recognizes his motivations and his goals. Since there is a parallel relationship between the self-disclosure within the self and self-disclosures to others, there is a bond of trust between Richard and his audience. As the level of trust increases in a self-disclosing situation and the level of risk decreases, the level of self-disclosure may increase.

An important result of the disclosures in these two plays concerns the relationship between Richard and the audience. By witnessing how Richard deals with his role, his past and his thoughts, the audience can relate them to their own experiences or values and decide how much they are similar. Palmer concludes, “Richard, turning his conscience out-of-doors, promises his audience a moral holiday and the promise is kept to such good purpose that those who are most refreshed with his heathen villainies leave the theatre thanking God most fervently for their Christian virtues.”¹⁰ The little bit of “unknown” within all of us is manifested in the character of Richard. Holland quotes Freud on Richard III's behavior and interprets its meaning for an audience:

‘The bitterness and minuteness with which Richard has depicted his deformity’ have a hidden effect; they make us feel ‘that we ourselves could be like Richard. Richard is an enormously magnified representation of something we can all discover in ourselves,’ namely, the tendency to reproach nature and destiny for our own lack of perfection and to ‘demand reparation for early wounds to our narcissism, our self-love,’ in short, the tendency to consider ourselves ‘exceptions.’ Shakespeare however, has very subtly not revealed this aspect directly, and so keeps us identified with his hero without our quite knowing why.¹¹

Notes

1. [Hugh] Duncan, [Symbols in Society (New York: Oxford University Press, 1972),] p. 128.

2. John C. Bromley, The Shakespearean Kings (Boulder, Colorado: Colorado Associated University Press, 1971), p. 34.

3. Nicholas Brooke, Shakespeare's Early Tragedies (London: Metheun and Company Ltd., 1968), p. 56.

4. At the time of these soliloquies, Richard believes this to be true, and though he successfully woos Anne in the second scene of act one in Richard III, he is genuinely surprised by his success.

5. The audience will realize that Richard's grotesque appearance forces his actions. “It is good to consider of deformity, not as a sign which is more deceivable; but as a cause, which seldom faileth of the effect. Whosoever hath any thing fixed in his person that doth induce contempt, hath also a perpetual spur in himself to rescue and deliver himself from scorn.” Francis Bacon, “Of Deformity,” in The Works of Francis Bacon, eds. J. Spedding, R. L. Ellis and D. D. Heath (London, 1890), VI, 480.

6. Edward Berry in Patterns of Decay: Shakespeare's Early Histories (Charlottesville, Virginia: University Press of Virginia, 1975), p. 69, characterizes these soliloquies as “Shakespeare's exploration of the psychological impact of Richard's deformity.”

7. See specifically: Daniel Fogarty, Roots for a New Rhetoric (New York: Russell and Russell, 1959), p. 172.

8. Duncan, p. 109.

9. Duncan, p. 109.

10. John Palmer, Political and Comic Characters of Shakespeare (London: MacMillan and Company, Ltd., 1965), p. 165.

11. Norman H. Holland, Psychoanalysis and Shakespeare (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966), p. 71. Holland quotes from Sigmund Freud, Standard Edition of the Complete Works of Sigmund Freud, trans. J. Strachey, A. Freud, A. Strachey and A. Tyson (London: Hogarth Press, 1953), XIV, 313-315.