Richard III and Macbeth

Richard III and Macbeth

In the plays of William Shakespeare, certain themes seem to appear over and over again. In both the stories of Richard III and Macbeth, very ambitious men use nefarious means in order to achieve leadership of their countries. Each man is in line for the throne, but has to deal with other people who are closer to the crown than he is. So, the title character takes it upon him to eliminate all the people who stand between him and ultimate power. It doesn't matter if they are family members or friends. Anyone who stands in the way is done away with either through murder or by framing the person for murder. What often happens when a man or woman uses bloodshed to get ahead in the world is that the deaths come back to haunt them, often in a physical form. This haunting, whether real or imaginary always precedes the character's eventual fall and death.

In Richard III, the title character wakes from a dream before he goes to do battle with his enemy Richmond. In the dream, he sees all the ghosts of the people he has either directly murdered or who he helped destroy through his actions. Upon waking, the king delivers a soliloquy in which he tries to justify his actions to himself and the viewing audience. Through-out the story, Richard has been able to manipulate everyone around him. Those that he could not manipulate, he had taken care of. However, as the people take up arms against him, Richard becomes aware that he is losing control even though he is the king. He cannot manipulate the people as he was able to do earlier on. Instead he has to rely more and more on violence to achieve his ends. In the passage, he vacillates between regretting his actions and calling himself a villain to declaring himself the rightful king and thus justifying his actions. He says, "I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not" (V.v. 191). Not only does he lose the power to control his fellow countrymen, but this passage is evident that he has also lost the power to control himself.

Similar to Richard III, the character of Macbeth in the play of the same name is a very ambitious man who commits treachery and murder in order to become the king. Macbeth had a partner in his misdeeds. Lady Macbeth, his wife, not only encouraged several of the murders, but took part in the killing of her king also. It is Lady Macbeth who spurred her husband to action against King Duncan and now that he is dead, he makes it clear that he is not strong enough to control his kingdom without her. He says, "Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player / That struts and frets his hour upon the stage" (V.v. 24-25). Life is fleeting and terribly short. He knows that his end is coming.

The two stories are similar in that both men commit murders in order to become the kings of their respective countries. Both know that their desires are immoral but decide that their ambition is stronger than their understanding of right or wrong. However, neither man is strong enough to keep the power of the throne for long after they have attained it. For Richard III, he faces far too much opposition from the relatives of the men and boys that he has killed to be able to hold onto the power for long. In Macbeth's case, he also is haunted by the dead, but he also loses the source of his strength when his wife goes insane and commits suicide.

Essay Topic 2:

Richard III is about a man who is willing to do anything in order to achieve his goals. He kills family members and friends at will, even two young boys. No one is safe from his murderous ambition. One of the ways that Richard is able to obtain power is by the manipulation of the people around him. He goes so far as to pledge love and offer marriage to a woman solely because of the benefit she may do him, planning to discard her once she is no longer useful in his endeavors. Richard III uses the women in his acquaintance as pawns in his intellectual and ambitious plans to acquire and keep the throne of England. First Richard wins the affections of a woman whose husband he had killed, then after she is disposed of, he endeavors to marry his niece, the daughter of the queen whose family he has decimated with his greed.

After killing her husband, Richard III attempts to win over the widowed Lady Anne and coerce her into marrying him. He uses his charm and his ability to flatter in order to make the woman forget how much ill this man has already done her and she agrees to marry him. Even as Lady Anne stands in her husband's tomb, Richard begins to woo her and quickly succeeds. At first she absolutely detests this man because she associates him, quite rightly, with her husband's death. She calls him all manner of deplorable names and yet all he does is compliment her and deny his involvement in her husband's death. Lady Anne spits at says that she wishes it were poison. His response is that "Never came poison from so sweet a place" (I.ii.147). Then he hands his/her own sword and begs her kill him rather than spurn his affections. His words play on her anger at her husband's death, her desire to find someone to blame, her vulnerability, and her desire to be loved and worshipped. She allows herself to be wooed by her enemy because he says all the right things and because he is a very good liar.