Thursday, November 13, 2008
Richard: Love him or hate him?
In lecture the question was asked, "Why does Shakespeare turn Richard into such a villain?" This is a good point to look at because who is he a villain too and what are the readers supposed to feel? We can understand that Richard is a terrible guy for killing so many for so little reason sometimes. He is a murderer, and what makes it worse is that in the play we are shown signs that he is also pretty intellectual which makes the killings even worse. He should be looked at as a terrible character, yet after reading it you can almost feel sympathy for him. He does these terrible things but is it because its predetermined? Margaret brings in predestination in lines from act 1, scene 3, that make seem like maybe this isn't all Richard's fault. Or it can be the fact we feel bad for just the overall person he is, and how he can't see these terrible things he does as being bad. He feels peace makes man weak, how can anyone feel any sympathy for that is crazy to think, but reading the play throughout it's hard to keep that set idea that he is beyond horrible and a little sympathy creeps into my mind. In the end, I may feel a little sympathy for him, but i would never want to see him on the streets.
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2 comments:
I don't think I would go as far to say that I feel sympathy for him, because I don't. But in a weird way, I really like Richard's no remorse, no guilt way of killing. He is pure evil, and that's something I have to respect. Unlike Hamlet and Macbeth who struggle with conflicting feelings throughout their entire plays, this is a protagonist that doesn't struggle with any feelings of guilt. Richard is able to kill in cold blood, and is not very humanlike in that he has no redeeming qualities whatsoever. I guess you could compare him to Scar in the Lionking, and strangely, when I was little I respected how evil and coniving he was. Like Scar, (excuse me for the really lame example), he has these ambitions and doesn't have time to feel guilt. Interestingly I guess you could say this is who Lady Macbeth aspires to be, when she wants to be rid of all her humanlike qualities in order that they won't weaken her ambitions to have Macbeth as king.
I agree, there is little to admire of Richard. Regardless of how bad a person he is, his brilliance and charisma allow him to get what he desires. Because he is able to defend his actions (or lie) so well, we have difficulty seeing him as completely evil. Reading the first few acts of Richard III, I couldn’t help thinking about how our class discussions are set up. “If you can argue it, it works.” Richard made “it” work for him and he acquired the throne, and although we know that the murders he committed and the lies he told were wrong, we are still forced to respect him for the way he went about it. Just as what we discuss in class may (or may not) be what Shakespeare had originally intended, we will still argue our points, and it may (or may not) end up accepted as the true meaning.
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