King Richard II, despite his rich royal bloodline, is a failure in his role as King of England. As William Shakespeare introduces his readers to The Tragedy of King Richard the Second, the audience learns that while becoming king at an early age, King Richard becomes obsessed with the power and prestige that comes with the thrown and forsakes developing himself as a leader. The volatility and disorder produced from unethical, corrupt and incompetent behavior during King Richard’s reign are a direct reflection of the actions of a man who lack the qualities of a good leader and ultimately lead to his demise. To achieve greatness as a leader, King Richard needs strong guidance, positive role models, and a willingness to take instruction. Unfortunately, …show more content…
King Richard lost his father at the early age of ten and soon was crowned King without experiencing those qualities (Mortimer, 2006). As a direct result of his youthful age at the time, he was awarded the title “King of England,” Richard is dependent on a select council and his mother, from which he receives direction. His uncles, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster and Thomas Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, were members of the council and made decisions for Richard. As Richard turned eighteen and his mother passed, he declared himself king but lacked the cognizance needed to hold the title with honor (Summers, 1991). King Richard’s standard leadership style and biased conduct attributed to the absence of a paternal presence in his early years where the building of character begins. Shakespeare portrays King Richard’s character to lack integrity and embraces corruption.
Although it was the public knowledge that King Richard was responsible for orchestrating the death of his uncle, he still allows Mowbray to stand accused of plotting the death (Richard II, 2007). Lacking the ability to take responsibility for his actions and the absence of justice in his decisions allows the reader to see a pattern in a flawed human being as well as a leader. However, more concerning is the initial decision to order the death of another outside of the law. Additionally, Kind Richard’s redirection to stop England from crashing into financial ruin, he enforced unfair taxations while extorting monies from the noblemen (Shakespeare, 2010, 1.4. 43-52). One of the greatest travesties to his character was commandeering the estate of his deceased uncle; Therefore, robbing Henry Bolingbrook of his inheritance (Cite). Shakespeare’s portrayal of King Richard’s character depicts him to be selfish, egocentric and oblivious to the makings of an honorable human; Nonetheless, a king. An honorable leader evaluates and assesses all aspects of a situation and uses the analyzation to make the most logical choice for people, not themselves. Lacking integrity made him incapable of this type of …show more content…
reasoning. Effectual leaders are confident and stand by their decisions and support the cause for which they are fighting; Much like Shakespeare’s character, Othello.
Othello, who was widely revered by his soldiers as well as officials, earned that honor by taking responsibility for his actions. In contrast, King Richard was indecisive and weak. In Act 1 Scene 1 Henry Bolingbrook has accused Thomas Mowbray of murder and challenges him to a dual (Shakespeare, 2014). King Richard agrees but dramatically halts the dual before it ever begins. This scene allows a survey of the mindset of King Richard and allows one to question if it was fear from God to display his real character or reverence. Despite the articulate words he conveys, they lack sincerity, and his advice is childish (Pearlman, 1992). Afraid that his dark secrets will be made known, he chooses to banish both individuals; One for life and the other for ten years. The fact that he banished one of his most faithful supporters, Thomas Mowbray, confirms he was cowardice and sought to ensure his own selfish, personal
gain. The reputation and valor associated with being king appealed more to Richard than the role and responsibility of being king. Shakespeare reveals the arrogance and vanity that consumes Richard many times throughout the pay; Most prominently in Act 3 Scene 2 where Richard is speaking with Aumerle and says, “Not all the water in the rough, rude sea / Can wash the balm off from an anointed king; / The breath of worldly men cannot depose / The deputy elected by the Lord? (Shakespeare, 2014, 54-57). He lacks the interpersonal skills to relate with the common townspeople. Being unrelatable and unapproachable causes grave concern among the people. People, regardless of race or social standing, want a leader they can trust and believe. Ironically, King Ricard possesses charm and a presence where he is gifted with eloquent speech and can say all the right things but lacks the integrity to fulfill his words and fails to connect on a personal level with people (Bevington,2012, p. 326). Poignantly, King Richard’s failure to build relationships with his people sprout the uprising of Henry Bolingbrook, and once it starts, King Richard is unable to recover. Furthermore, King Richard worshipped the crown and associated his identity with the crown only and failed to understand his worth outside of the kingship (Richard II, 2007). In his disposition he longs for his title, “I have no name, no title” (Shakespeare, 2010, 4.1.255). King Richard was the ruler of England, but he was not a leader to England. The way he conducted himself and his business resulted in a rebellion about his kingship. His inability to take ownership of the destruction of England and unwillingness to ask for help caused even some of his loyal followers to revolt. In the Gardeners scene in Act 3 Scene IV when they say, “Why do we try if our leader is corrupt” (40-46) is telling in the fact that his people felt useless to fight for something their leader was not willing to fight for. A king that loses the respect of his or her followers it is challenging to continue to bridge those relationships, and the followers begin to look for new opportunities to better themselves. This type of atmosphere welcomed opportunities for Bolingbrook to take advantage of King Richard’s haughty mindset. As a leader, King Richard was unhinged in his thinking and felt he was called by higher powers and was fulfilling his destiny and sure to receive divine blessings (Forker, 2001). Such an arrogance allowed King Richard only to see himself through his eyes and was blinded to other perceptions. In conclusion, King Richard could be a robust ruler but allowed immaturity, pride, self-conceit, and arrogance to foster poor decision making. A ruler must first be a student where they open their minds to learning from multiple avenues. King Richard’s actions from early in his reign to final days never wavered and remained consistently inadequate as he failed to learn from his mistakes. Many opportunities presented themselves to change direction or seek the council for advice from those that guarded England and its prosperity, but he failed to heed the call; Which in turn, cost him his most prized possession, his beloved crown, loving wife, freedom, and finally his life. King Richard squandered away his life and purpose due to an unwillingness to listen and learn from his mistakes costing him everything.
First power, amongst the royal family the mother, Eleanor is the Queen; the father is King Henry, the youngest son John, middle son Geoffrey, and oldest son Richard. In the play not one, but all of these characters have power in some kind of way. King Henry spent his life conquering many regions and wants to continue to conquer by passing king down to one of his three sons. A quote from the play that shows the greed that having power can create Henry asked, “Isn’t being chancellor power enough?” Geoffrey replies, “It’s not the power I feel deprived of. It’s the mention I miss.” Geoffrey does not think he will receive enough respect if he is just the chancellor and his younger brother John is king. When he comes to Richard, the oldest brother he thinks he should be king because of his army he has behind him, but this is where futility comes into play. It is not always about war and killing people to prove your powerful, but in Richards’s ways that is the only way. Richard says, “I am a constant soldier, a sometime poet, and I will be king.” This quote describes the type of person Richard wants to be, he wants to have all the power to rein over the castle and do it through war. Each of the family members is jealous of one another especially the children of the king and queen, it is pretty much a sibling rivalry between them. Having power can be a good thing or bad thing, in this situation the king and queens children have a different view on having power and what they would do if crowned
Shakespeare constructs King Richard III to perform his contextual agenda, or to perpetrate political propaganda in the light of a historical power struggle, mirroring the political concerns of his era through his adaptation and selection of source material. Shakespeare’s influences include Thomas More’s The History of King Richard the Third, both constructing a certain historical perspective of the play. The negative perspective of Richard III’s character is a perpetuation of established Tudor history, where Vergil constructed a history intermixed with Tudor history, and More’s connection to John Morton affected the villainous image of the tyrannous king. This negative image is accentuated through the antithesis of Richards treachery in juxtaposition of Richmond’s devotion, exemplified in the parallelism of ‘God and Saint George! Richmond and victory.’ The need to legitimize Elizabeth’s reign influenced Shakespeare’s portra...
To explore connections between texts is to heighten understanding of humanity’s progressing values and the underlying relevant themes that continue to engage societies regardless of context. William Shakespeare’s King Richard III (1592) (RIII) and Al Pacino’s docudrama Looking for Richard (1996) (LFR) demonstrate how opinion is created through comparative study, both explore the struggle for power within differing contexts to determine the duplicity of humanity. Ultimately, despite the divergent eras of composition and textual form, these connections expose the relevant social commentaries of their composers, highlighting innately human values, which remain constant.
The undeniable pursuit for power is Richard’s flaw as a Vice character. This aspect is demonstrated in Shakespeare’s play King Richard III through the actions Richard portrays in an attempt to take the throne, allowing the audience to perceive this as an abhorrent transgression against the divine order. The deformity of Richards arm and back also symbolically imply a sense of villainy through Shakespeare’s context. In one of Richard’s soliloquies, he states how ‘thus like the formal Vice Iniquity/ I moralize two meanings in one word’. Through the use of immoral jargons, Shakespeare emphasises Richard’s tenacity to attain a sense of power. However, Richard’s personal struggle with power causes him to become paranoid and demanding, as demonstrated through the use of modality ‘I wish’ in ‘I wish the bastards dead’. This act thus becomes heavily discordant to the accepted great chain of being and conveys Richard’s consumption by power.
Richard did not manage to recover from the usurpation of Edward and after allegedly murdering the two Princes in the tower his reputation had fallen greatly. He had lost a lot of respect from nobles and from the populus. Killing the Princes could be seen as one of the major factors of his downfall. It was common place in monarchical families to have brothers and sisters "put out of the picture", but even in these primitive times, the murder of innocent children was a taboo.
to behave in the same way as King Richard, and since he is acting this way, the
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
Richard III as a Successful Politician Shakespeare's Richard III is set in England after the War of the Roses. Richard, the megalomanic eponymous character, is desperate for the throne of England. He tells us that he seeks the crown to compensate for his deformity (he was a hunchback from birth). Richard has his own brother killed and later has former allies and those who still stood in his way killed also. When Richard eventually gains the throne he finds his conscience and begins to feel insecure, he has the two Princes he has locked away killed.
This contributes to a very villainous role. Richard begins his journey to the throne. He manipulates Lady Anne. into marrying him, even though she knows that he murdered her first. husband.
The task which Shakespeare undertook was to mold the hateful constitution of Richard's Moral; character. Richard had to contend with the prejudices arising from his bodily deformity which was considered an indication of the depravity and wickedness of his nature. Richard's ambitious nature, his elastic intellect, and his want of faith in goodness conspire to produce his tendency to despise and degrade every surrounding being and object, even as his own person. He is never sincere except when he is about to commit a murder.
According to many, Shakespeare intentionally portrays Richard III in ways that would have the world hail him as the ultimate Machiavel. This build up only serves to further the dramatic irony when Richard falls from his throne. The nature of Richard's character is key to discovering the commentary Shakespeare is delivering on the nature of tyrants. By setting up Richard to be seen as the ultimate Machiavel, only to have him utterly destroyed, Shakespeare makes a dramatic commentary on the frailty of tyranny and such men as would aspire to tyrannical rule.
In the Shakespeare play Richard III was depicted as a malformed mean, ill looking, tyrant. But this was not the case. Richard
In spite of the weaknesses, Ivanhoe and King Richard demonstrate true chivalric characteristics. They exemplify integrity, loyalty to the king, a love for adventure and bravery. Through this book, the reader learns the meaning of moral guidelines due to the examples set by King Richard and Ivanhoe. These examples challenge us to search for our own moral guidelines. Without these, we have nothing to strive for.
Due to the powerful influence of the monarchy, the nature, duties and responsibilities of kingship were of particular interest to Shakespeare. The mark of a bad king was the decline of the political, social and economic climates, while the mark of a good king was the blossoming of such worlds. Therefore, the characteristics of the person occupying the kingship were crucial to the health of the nation. Shakespeare explores this issue in many of his plays by examining the traits of poorly fulfilled kingships, and the political and social ramifications of such monarchical failures. He does this most notably in Macbeth and Richard II. In both plays Shakespeare ultimately concludes that tyrants are formed by their own lack of foresight, strong lusts for power, overly large egos, unstable natures and rash tempers. When a king fails his country it is because he has neglected his duties and responsibilities to the state. To do so is to spit in the face of God, the state and the people. Thus, in both Macbeth and Richard II, Shakespeare defines the nature, duties and responsibility of a successful kingship by exploring the ramifications and manifestations of a denial of or lack of such characteristics in the person occupying this position.
In Richard II, the divine right to rule is a contentious issue. In each play by Shakespeare, the kings are susceptible to certain errors that stem from divine rule or from flouting it, and seizing power on their own. For instance, Richard II has believed his entire life that his kingship is a gift from God and that his actions are an extension of God’s will. By believing that everything he does is an act of the lord, he alienates himself from his subjects and ends up losing his throne to Henry, who does not have the authorization of the lord, but is more politically minded that Richard. This creates a question that spreads through many of the history plays that Shakespeare wrote; is it divine right or power that allows one to rule? This struggle leads to a myriad of issues throughout Richard II and contributes extensively to these representative works of some of England’s famous rulers.