Discuss Shakespeare's presentation of women in Richard III. Are they convincing characters?
AS Level English Literature Coursework: Shakespeare's King Richard III
Discuss Shakespeare's presentation of women in Richard III. Are they convincing characters?
In Shakespeare's King Richard III, the historical context of the play is dominated by male figures. Women are relegated to an inferior role, as a result. However, they achieve verbal power through their own disquisition of religion and superstition. Shakespeare almost seems to be on Richard's side in the first three acts of Richard III, by showing us the play from Richard's point of view. Eventually, the play and possibly the audience withdraw their sympathy from Richard, instead turning to his victims, mainly the 'flat' female characters.
The first woman we see in Richard III is Lady Anne. In her opening speech of Act 1 Scene 2, Lady Anne orientates the reader to the crucial political context of the play and the metaphysical issues contained within it. Using strong language, she curses her foes to indicate her authority. She utilises imagery and speaks in blank verse to emphasise her emotions and reinforce her pleas: 'That I can wish to wolves, spiders, toads, / or any venomed thing that lives.' Her speech clearly illustrates the distinction between the deferential role within the male sphere of war and the powerful female voice within the realm of superstition.
The language demonstrated by Lady Anne is appropriate for the scene, which is set during the funeral procession of King Henry VI. The dullness of one who feels sorrow and pain is emphasised by the end-stopped lines as they slow the pace of speech. Additionally, the drama of her speech and the powerful emotion she exudes is stressed by the ornate verse.
Lady Anne also introduces the supernatural in this scene by addressing the ghost: 'Be it lawful that invocate thy ghost.' Summoning the ghost, which is one of many spirits in the play. She continues to address the spirit of the King whom she renders capable of befalling a curse upon his murderer: 'Stabb'd by the self- same hand that made these wounds.' With a string of curses and oaths, she asks for revenge upon his murderer. These are complemented by the rhetoric of witchcraft. The form of her speech doesn't change despite her anger, however it is more defined by her use of repetition. Her mood id magnified by the repetition of key words in her cries:
'Oh cursèd be the hand that made these fatal holes!
Cursed be the hand that had the heart to do it!
Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!'
The repetition of 'cursed' three times suggests a spell is being cast. Added to this, 'blood' and 'heart' are each repeated twice which both adds emphasis and sounds powerful and which proves to be an effective rhetorical device. In contrast, the curse she wishes upon his wife is weak. She asks that his wife be 'more miserable by the death if him/ Than I am made by my young lord and thee.' Here she id unknowingly cursing herself, proving that cursing is a dangerous game.
It is here that Richard steps in determined to marry her, as a path to the throne. At this point, Lady Anne absolutely loathes Richard. It is ironic that she agrees to marry him knowing at some point she'll be killed. It also suggests that her curse is somewhat false.
The purpose of this scene is for Lady Anne to get married, as part of the historical plot, and is largely to demonstrate Richard's brilliance as a manipulator of people, and this wooing of Anne seems to offer definitive evidence. His ability to persuade the grieving, better Anne to accept him as her suitor is proof of his skill in playing on people's emotions, and convincing them that he is sincere when in fact, he is lying between his teeth.
The technique that he uses involves his gentleness and perseverance in praising her beauty: 'Your beauty was the cause of that effect: / Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep.' This tactic concludes in Richard's highly risky gesture of him offering his sword to her, but by being interrupted by his speeches Anne is unable to kill him: '.... Though I wish thy death, / I will not be thy executioner'- just what he was counting in her to say.
This is a demonstration of his persuasive rhetoric technique and his power to do so. Due to the very status of women in this play, he and his nerve to do so overcome her. Every woman needs to be allied with a man who has power, in order to gain power. Therefore she must accept his proposal in order to maintain her status.
It is then in Act 4 Scene 1 where we see Anne hearing news about her being crowned queen. She now realises that she:
'Grossly grew captive of his honey words,
And proved the subject of mine own souls curse,
Which hither to hath held mine eyes from rest.' She now realises that her own curses in Act 2 Scene 1 have come true.
Like Lady Anne, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York recite curses as a form or as an attempt to be in control of their situations.
We ...
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It is then in Act 4 Scene 1 where we see Anne hearing news about her being crowned queen. She now realises that she:
'Grossly grew captive of his honey words,
And proved the subject of mine own souls curse,
Which hither to hath held mine eyes from rest.' She now realises that her own curses in Act 2 Scene 1 have come true.
Like Lady Anne, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York recite curses as a form or as an attempt to be in control of their situations.
We first hear of Elizabeth in Act 1 Scene 1, mentioned by Richard to Clarence. The portrayal of her and her family is negative. Richard insults her by not giving her the title she deserves: 'My Lady Grey, his wife, Clarence, 'tis she/ That tempts him to this harsh extremity.' He also implies that her family are all out of control, by saying 'Anthony Woodville, her brother there.'
Richard rightly views her as an enemy, since she opposes his rise to power and Elizabeth seems well aware of his hostility towards her. Their conversation in Act 1 Scene 3, before Margaret interrupts, is laden with double meanings and subtle jabs; as she says to him 'come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester.'
Foreshadowing is also present in this scene. In her conversation with her kinsmen before Richard enters, Elizabeth seems to predict the harm, which Richard intends towards her family. She is afraid of what Richard may do if he is named 'Lord Protector' after the death of King Edward: 'It is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester, / A man that loves me nor none of you.' She sadly says 'I fear our happiness is at the height,' despite the efforts made to cheer her up. She is predicting that this is the height of her fortune- therefore the wheel of fortune is turning against her. At this point, her husband is alive, thus she has the means to imprison people, but the next time we see her, Act 2 Scene 2, she has lost her power as 'our King is dead.'
In Act 2 Scene 4, we see Elizabeth's reaction to learning the news of her kinsmen's imprisonment- 'Aye me! I see the ruin of my house.' She knows that the imprisonment is likely to lead to death. Elizabeth is now frightened for own safety, including her sons, one of which is the heir to the throne. She decides to take her youngest child 'to sanctuary'- which seems to be the only rational response.
Elizabeth's next appearance is in Act 4 Scene 4. She desperately wanted to learn how to curse and examples of this are: 'That i should wish for thee to help me curse' and 'O thou well skilled in curses, stay awhile, / And teach me how to curse mine enemies.' Her role at this point in the play is to take over Margaret's power since she has risen and fallen, all that is left for Elizabeth to do is to curse like Margaret. After being told by Margaret that 'Thy woes will make [her words] sharp, and pierce like mine,' Elizabeth's cursing ability is reflected in her conversation with Richard.
Almost immediately, Elizabeth simply says to Richard:
'I have no more sons of the royal blood
For thee to slaughter. For my daughters, Richard,
They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens.'
Richard wishes to marry her daughter but Elizabeth is willing to 'confess she was not Edward's daughter' in order to keep her safe and to save her from marrying Richard. She wonders how he can possibly woo her and sarcastically she suggests he should send her 'a pair of bleeding hearts; thereon engrave Edward and York;' or 'A handkerchief, which, say to her, did drain/ The purple sap from her sweet brother's body,' to wipe her eyes with. This is all deeply ironic as she is telling Richard to take responsibility for what he has done. The tone is very angry and this level of irony demonstrated is one we haven't seen, especially from the female characters.
She then suggests for him to 'send her a letter of thy noble deeds.' Elizabeth has taken three means of expressing love and motifs of love and twisted them. This is by far her most powerful speech as it's deep in irony by using these motifs and twisting them and indicating that she has the upper hand. He then proposes that 'I did this for the love of her' which is the same argument that worked before when wooing Anne in Act 1 Scene 2. When Elizabeth rejects this as absurd, he changes tack by telling her that she would gain more out of her daughter becoming queen and surely she will be as happy being a 'grandam' as she was being a mother. He also proposes that this marriage would safeguard Dorset and Richard would be able to call 'thy Dorset bother.' Again, this is ironic, given the history of him and his own brothers.
All Elizabeth has to do is 'prepare her ears to hear a wooers tale' so that he can marry her once he had defeated Buckingham. However, Elizabeth has an answer for him:
'What were I best to say? Her father's brother
would be her lord? Or shall I say her uncle?
Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?'
Her use of rhetorical questions adds to her powerful speech. She doesn't give Richard time to speak, at this point he is being played and beaten at his own game, which again is ironic, as she is using similar tactics that Richard has used himself. Her powerful speech is then demonstrated further. She uses Richard's words to answer back which makes her equal in the argument. An example of this is: when Richard says 'Say I will love her everlastingly' and Elizabeth replies by saying: 'But how long shall that title ever last?'
Her quick answers are made up of short sentences which contributes to her equality in the argument due to her anger and bitterness and this contributes to the fast dialogue. It could be argued that she has new cursing power. Her continued dialogue portrays the transition that she has gone through as she continues to bring up all of Richard's wrongdoings. She points out that he can't swear on anything he hasn't wronged for he has mistreated himself, his father, God and the future.
However, we begin to think that Elizabeth is softening as she ponders: 'shall I go win my daughter to thy will?' She departs allowing him to assume that she has given in. In fact he has totally underestimated her, as he hasn't seen the signs. He has already wooed Anne, so therefore he assumes that he has beaten Elizabeth, as when she departs, Richard reveals his true colours by calling her a 'relenting fool and shallow, changing woman.'
The whole purpose of this was to observe how effective Elizabeth's has become. Shakespeare does this to enable Richmond to ascend. This whole process of charming Elizabeth is a reflection of the wooing but with a difference. In this case Richard hasn't succeeded as the next time the audience hears of Elizabeth in Act 4 Scene 5, she has promised her daughter to Richmond. She only spoke evasively at the end as an excuse to leave. Overall, this transition has showed Elizabeth to be a convincing character as she has defeated Richard at his own game.
The old queen, Margaret, first appears in Act 1 Scene 3. She appears aside from the others; therefore they can't hear her. She comments on the action and on Richard himself. Due to her lack of power, she may be able to understand the truth better. It is clever how this scene is actually written, as it seems that Margaret and Richard are having a conversation, due to the clever use of language, when in fact she is commenting aside, directly to the audience. An example of this would be:
M: [Aside] A lessened be that small, God I beseech him.
Thy honour, state and seat is due to me
R: What? Threat you me with telling of the king?
I will avouch't in presence of the king.
This quality of her being aside actually enables her to tell the truth about Richard as she calls him 'a murderous villain, and so still thou art.' She displays the most impressive instances of foreshadowing. In this scene, apparently out of nowhere, she appears unexpectedly like a ghost. She hurls curses in this scene at nearly every member of the royal family.
Her curses begin with 'which God revenge,' which is directed at Richard. She has extreme hatred for the Yorks and the Woodvilles as she feels that they have displaced her and are responsible for the killing of her own family. 'Thy honour, state, and seat is due to me,' she says of Queen Elizabeth and she also calls her a 'poor painted queen'- implying that she isn't a real queen but only an imitation. She wants the royal family to suffer the same fate as hers: since her son Edward dies 'in his youth by untimely violence,' by being 'stabbed with bloody daggers,' she prays that Elizabeth's young son Edward will also die; and since her husband Henry was murdered, she prays that Elizabeth will 'live to wail thy children's death/ And see another, as I see thee now.' The summary of her curses is seen in 'Die neither mother, wife, nor England's queen.' The use of three of a kind adds emphasis to this curse.
Margaret saves the worst for Richard. She curses him never to have rest: 'No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, / Unless it be while some tormenting dream.' She also warns him that 'the worm of conscience still begnaw thy soul.' The language used in her speech in particular, has repetition of 'thou' which gives it rhythm as it speeds up the dialogue.
At the end, Shakespeare confuses the audience when Richard interrupts by saying Margaret's name, so the curses will rebound to her. It's possible that Shakespeare did this to make it more ambiguous as to whether curses really work.
Act 4 Scene 4 is when we see Margaret next. She gleefully observes that 'now prosperity begins to mellow/ And drop into the rotten mouth of death.' She reminds us of the events that have bred from her prophecies earlier on in the play. This is her second appearance on the stage but it is as if her presence has been felt throughout. Her opening soliloquy displays theatrical vocabulary, such as 'induction' and 'tragical.' This calls attention to the rhetorical neatness of the play's shape.
Throughout the play she has watched a crisis develop and now she reveals to the audience that she 'will [go] to France, hoping the consequence/ Will prove as bitter, black and tragical.' When the Duchess and Elizabeth arrive, she hides in a corner and listens to them wailing the deaths of the prince's. Here, she comments aside and her curses in the first act becomes more powerful than ever as several of the characters that she cursed have in fact been killed, supporting the idea of her curses coming to fruition. She compares the deaths of the princes to her own tragedies, thus demonstrating the wheel of fortune- the wheel has turned and the change is observed with triumph and bitterness by a lurking, isolated speaker. She eventually reveals herself and says:
' I had an Edward, till a Richard killed him;
I had a husband, till a Richard killed him.
Thou hadst an Edward, till a Richard killed him;
Thou hadst a Richard, till a Richard killed him.'
She emphasises the joint and parallel sufferings of the two queens by her repetition of their names. The rhythm of the words, together with the repetition, creates a hypnotic, mesmerising feel to the lament. Further on, her sentences become shorter than usual. Her tone is very vindictive which contributes to her showing no sympathy.
She then turns to her next enemy- Elizabeth. She says that she was never more than a 'poor shadow, painted queen,' which is referring to her curse in Act 1 Scene 3. Margaret also brings in imagery from the theatre- ' A queen in jest, only to fill the scene'- implying that she has only been acting queen as is she were on stage. The next part of her speech is full of rhetorical techniques, using especially rhetorical questions, which dramatise her speech. This is one of her frequent uses of rhetorical techniques, which really add emphasis to the emotions she exudes and her curses. It is this that attracted Elizabeth, as she wants Margaret to teach her how to curse, which is her final function in the play. I have discussed earlier on in my essay. Throughout the play Shakespeare presents her, as a very vengeful person who is bitter till the end and it is this that she definitely demonstrates effectively, therefore resulting in her being a convincing character.
Overall, Margaret has lost her physical power and there is a question of whether she can predict and curse or not. Her curses are conditional on someone else's curses- on being responsible for the death of her son. She has a dramatic importance in the play as her curses come into fruition in the second half. This is her role in the play and Richard presents her as a 'foul wrinkled witch.'
We first see the Duchess of York in Act 2 Scene 2 and this is a scene of great emotion. The Duchess is confronting Clarence's two young children by trying to spare them by saying that their father isn't dead. Here she wishes that she never gave birth to Richard: 'He is my son, ay, and therein my shame.' Suddenly, Elizabeth enters and the lamenting begins. The mourning ritual is very ritualistic. The focus of the play is shifted for a while from psychological realism, and towards the traditional expressions of grief. Their language and symmetrical structure adds to the ritual mourning:
CHILDREN: Ah, for our father, for our dear lord Clarence.
DUCHESS: Alas for both, both mine Edward and Clarence.
ELIZABETH: What stay had I but Edward? And he's gone.
CHILDREN: What stay had we Clarence? And he's gone.
DUCHESS: What stays had i but they? And they are gone.
ELIZABETH: Was never widow had so dear loss.
CHILDREN: Were never orphans had so dear loss.
The three of a kind demonstrated adds power to the ritual. Repetition of 'what stays' adds to this power and rhetoric. This is a clear example of the female triads in this play.
The next time we see the Duchess is in Act 2 Scene 2, when she summarises everything that has occurred in the past two acts: 'Blood to blood, self against self. Oh, preposterous/ And frantic outrage, end thy damnèd spleen, / or let me die, to look on earth no more.' The repetition of 'blood' and 'self' adds emphasis to the consequences of what her son has done.
Act 4 Scene 1 is her next appearance. Here she uses animal imagery to emphasise her hatred towards Richard- 'cockatrice.' Her sorrow is stressed further in 'Eighty- odd years of sorrow have i seen, / And each hours joy wracked with a week of teen.'
However, her most significant appearance is in Act 4 Scene 4, as she also seems to learn the ability to curse. She has no patience left for her son, nor love and gives him her 'most grievous curse.' She prays that this will wear him down at the battle. She in fact resembles Margaret and is therefore able to put a curse onto Richard. She leaves him prophesising that 'bloody will be thy end.' Her language changes from passages to stichomythic lines. This is partly her role. The Duchess demonstrated how the women can change to reflect on the events occurred.
Apart from appearing separately, the women appear together in some of the scenes. This has an important significance and is the main demonstration of this is in Act 4 Scene 4. This is the scene of the wailing queens, which has roots in classical and English religious drama. This scene has been particularly compared to the Iliad, the lamentations of Helena, Andromache and Hecuba. Added to this, the identification in the English religious plays probably helped to shift the audience away from Richard and towards the women. In their scenes together, the female characters have been compared to the motif of the three Mary's in the Resurrection of the Lord.
In conclusion, the women are without physical power but have a metaphysical cursing power. The only power that women have is the manipulation of the curse for personal means within the male dominated society. While males gain power through physical strength, the women can utilise power through verbal strength and supernatural power.
The women are generally negatively presented and there is a negative attitude towards women ruling men: 'why, this it is when men are ruled by women,' said by Richard.
The women are used as a device so that we can encourage Richard to be King, whereas if the women were presented in a positive way, we wouldn't be able to support him.
Overall, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York are convincing characters as they all have their reasons to curse and appear throughout the play. However, Lady Anne is less convincing as she only appears twice. The first time she appears she is rather naive to believe in what Richard said, considering the circumstances. Shakespeare presented her like this so that we could side with Richard and in theory she was responsible for her own downfall.
AS Level English Literature Coursework: Shakespeare's King Richard III
Discuss Shakespeare's presentation of women in Richard III. Are they convincing characters?
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