The Failure Of Leadership In Prince Escalus And Richard II

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The characters that portray leadership in Shakespeare’s plays like dukes, kings, and generals are chaotic at best and are at times questionable in their leading roles. From characters like Duke Vincentio to more subtle rulers like Prince Escalus, all have had their fair share of leadership mishaps which sometimes proved as a huge mistake. Throughout history we are able to analyze the successful rulers and the unsuccessful rulers and the flaws that they did and did not possess compared to others. So what makes a good ruler and what qualities separate the true leaders from the not so good leaders? Richard II serves as a model to show that having a powerful sense of carelessness as a duke can bring tremendous consequences. King Richard was terribly Prince Escalus had the grand task of keeping the Montague-Capulet feud under control. Now the difference between Prince Escalus and Richard II was that Prince Escalus was actually AWARE of the internal problems of his kingdom. The prince actually did issue warnings to the feuding families during the beginning of the play. However, the warnings were clearly not enough for the families of Verona to stop regard with respect, leading into more deaths in the middle of the play. The problem with Prince Escalus is that he did not do ENOUGH to stop the problem. He can be compared to a dog with all bark, but no bite. Because of this, Prince Escalus cannot be determined as a good ruler, because of the fact that he was not involved enough in trying to stop the family feud. Unfortunately, because of his minimal efforts Romeo, Juliet, and many others were part of the deaths that are placed on the back of Prince One of these qualities is the ability for a ruler to see the good qualities in a stereotyped or rumored individual. The Duke of Venice possessed this quality and it showed from the beginning. The first time we are able to see this quality in the Duke of Venice, is with Othello being brought in before the court to explain the situation between him and Desdemona. Othello tells his recount of his Desdemona fell in love with him because of his noble tales and feats. After hearing this evidence, the Duke of Venice decides that if Desdemona was his daughter, even HE would let Othello marry Desdemona. This quality of seeing the good in an individual despite negative rumors is important for any ruler to possess. For example, the Duke of Venice appoints Othello as the general of his army, which obviously means the Duke was trusting of Othello despite his skin color or rumors heard about him. If the Duke even believed in the racism associated with Othello at all, the story could have been a lot

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