The Importance Of Allegory In Shakespeare's Richard II

Many rulers throughout time have ruled unjustly or incompetently. When rulers do not rightfully rule, not much can change, since kings act as the deputy of God. William Shakespeare beautifully tackles this idea of when and how a king should lose his kingship, through allegories, in his play Richard II. Allegories have an effectiveness in revealing a political notion, that simply stating it does not have. Richard has allowed his garden, or his kingdom, to become a tangled mess, showing his ineffectiveness as a ruler. Shakespeare strategically slips in some allegories that try to tell the reader what to do about an ineffective ruler, like Richard.
Unlike the queen, who has no knowledge of Richard’s whereabouts, the gardeners have an ample amount of knowledge about Richard’s downfall. While weeding and tending to the garden the gardeners talk of politics:
Go, bind thou up young dangling apricokes
Which, like unruly children, make their sire
Stoop with oppression of their prodigal weight…
I will root away
The noisome weeds. (3. 4. 32-41)
One gardener tells the other gardener to bind

the ‘dangling apricokes’ which symbolize the unstable role of king that Richard holds, and the apricoke tree symbolizes the English government, which has began ‘stoop’ with the weight of Richard as its ruler. The gardener then says he will go get rid of the “noisome weeds” that try to overtake the garden, which symbolize the rebels and Bolingbroke who try to dethrone and overtake King Richard II. Similar to how the apricot dangles, so close to falling, Richard desperately tries to hold on to his role of king.
The gardeners have a great amount of knowledge about what to do about unproductive leader.

The gardeners both converse about what should happen to an inefficient ruler: “[Richard] that hath suffered this disordered spring / Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf”(3.4.52-53). While talking to one gardener, the other gardener states that Richard has ‘suffered’ meaning allowed the ‘disordered spring’ which symbolizes the tangled garden called the English government. The gardener then says that Richard has “met with the fall of leaf” meaning he has met the end of his reign. Similar to the natural changes in season the allegory of the garden suggests that Richard should naturally lose kingship, similar to the natural change of seasons. Then again, a gardener must pick out unwanted plants, that infest the garden, which might also suggest that a ruler might have to physically become

dethroned.
Shakespeare uses allegories to help the reader realize what should happen to an inadequate leader. The gardeners use the apricots and weeds in the garden to talk about Richard and Bolingbroke. One gardener suggests that the king should naturally lose his role of authority, similar to the seasons, but the gardener must also pluck away any unwanted plants that may grow in the garden. The trouble with dethroning a ruler has to do with the fact that the king acts as God’s deputy, and defying the king works the same as defying God.