Shakespeare's Richard III: character analysis and dramatic structure

Duke of Gloucester

Shakespeare's Richard III, The Duke of Gloucester, may not bear much resemblance to the real king in character and appearance but in this play, he is certainly the most dominant and a fully developed figure that serves as both the protagonist and villain of the play. For critics, it is hard to decide whether Richard III can actually be called a tragedy because here the protagonist appears less a tragic figure and more a vain, cruel and malicious king who was ruthlessly ambitious and killed people not for the love of his country, as most other tragic kings did, but advance his own objectives.

It is widely believed that Shakespeare's Richard III was based on Sir Thomas More's description of the king. Other historians have often described him as a courageous and warm king, a description widely different from the image we get from Shakespeare's play. In this play, Shakespeare has created a monster who resembles More's description almost to a fault:

Richard...was in wit and courage equal with either of [his brothers], in body and prowess far under them both; little of stature, ill-featured of limbs, crook-backed, his left shoulder much higher than his right, hard-favoured of visage....He was malicious, wrathful, envious, and from afore his birth ever forward. It is for truth reported...that he came into the world with the feet forward...and, as the fame runs, also not untoothed....He was close and secret, a deep dissembler, lowly of countenance, arrogant of heart, outwardly companionable where he inwardly hated, not hesitating to kiss whom he thought to kill, pitiless and cruel....Friend and foe were to him indifferent; where his advantage grew, he spared no man's death whose life withstood his purpose. [p. 7-8]

Duke of Gloucester was certainly an ambitious person who could anything to reach the very top. On his way to the throne, Duke of Gloucester who later became Richard III conspires against the lawful heir, Duke of Clarence and imprisons him, woos Lady Anne, makes vicious plans with Duke of Buckingham and tries everything in his power to secure his place as the next King. He is also a manipulator who tries to win the sympathies of the audience by justifying his actions. He believes that since he is rejected by the world for his deformity, he must now seek revenge:

I, that am curtail'd of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deform'd, unfinish'd, sent before my time

Into this breathing world scarce half made up.

[1.1.20-23]

It is interesting to note here that while he believes that the world has rejected him because of his deformity and thus he seeks revenge, his experience with Lady Anne proves that he was well-accepted or could at least manipulate people's feelings easily. Why else would a woman would marry the murderer of her father-in-law and husband. Critics maintain that Richard III was a capable lover and had the skills required to manipulate a situation in his favor and thus his justification for his wrong actions was entirely baseless.

Oestreich-Hart (2000) contends: "Violent, bewildering, brazen, audacious, or not, in these few lines (just forty-three speeches), Richard persuades the woman whose husband, father, and father-in-law he has murdered to enter his bedchamber as his wife. How does he do it? While interpretations of Richard as Vice, Machiavel, or rhetorician certainly have their applications, the fact that has been assumed but scarcely addressed in any systematic way is that he wins Anne specifically because he "proves a lover." Indeed, he is a consummately skillful "courtly" lover ...."

Richard III was a Machiavellian king who ruled with ruthless ambition, blatant disregard for justice and fairness, and complete hypocrisy. He was an isolated figure and it was his isolation that gave birth to maliciousness in his character. Richard III appears to believe that everything he did was just since it was divine calling.

Duke of Gloucester had made numerous efforts to become Richard III. Once he has achieved his objective, he doesn't stop but restlessly seeks to solidify his power. He tries to get rid of his wife, conspires against the young princes in the Tower who are the legal heirs. He wants to kill them with the help of Duke of Buckingham but when the latter refuses to comply, he decides to kill them himself. In his callousness, he also decides to divorce or kill his wife to marry daughter of Queen Elizabeth. Richard's own mother, the Duchess of York, describes him as:

O my accurse'd womb, the bed of death!

A cockatrice hast thou hatch'd to the world, [4.1.53-54]

While Queen Margaret addresses him as:

Thou that wast seal'd in thy nativity

The slave of nature and the son of hell,

Thou slander of thy heavy mother's womb,

Thou loathed issue of thy father's loins, [1.3.228-231]