Shakespeare makes you both admire and hate Richard. For example, you would hate Richard in scene one when he talks to you about what evil things he has planned. Where as in Act one Scene two you grow to admire him again because of the way he flatters and wins over Lady Ann with words. He says things like “Sweet saint” and “Divine perfection of a woman” meaning he thinks she is perfect. But when Richard has said these flattering comments to Lady Ann, she immediately repels him by saying insults like “Diffused infection of a man” meaning that she thinks he is a grotty, disgusting and horrible man and “Thou unfit for any place but hell” which means that Lady Ann thinks that the only place that Richard could possibly live in is hell. Despite all these insults she throws at Richard he still wins her over with his flattering comments. He eventually marries Ann after having killed her husband and father, which she knew he had done. Richard should be admired for his cleverness for the way he won over Lady Ann and set up his schemes, never the less he shouldn’t be praised too much because he is still an evil and devious man who has committed murders. Also towards the end of Act One Scene Two he starts to get cocky after winning over Lady Ann and says some evil comments like “Was ever woman in this humour won? I’ll have her; but I will not keep her long” this is saying that he will marry Lady Ann but after a little while he will kill her. This will give the audience a very nasty image of Richard because of his evil antics.
Act One Scene Three is where Queen Margaret curses all the people she hates. She says horrible remarks like “God, I pray him, that none of you may live your natural age” which means that she is saying that all the people she hates she doesn’t want to live a long life, and another quotation is “Thy friends suspect for traitors while thou livest, and take deep traitors for thy dearest friends” which means that she wants all the people she hates to die so they can’t hurt her friends. Richard is one of the people Queen Margaret hated so therefore she cursed him. When she curses Richard she says to him “No sleep close up that deadly eye of thine, Unless it be whilst a tormenting dream, affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils!” This curse actually comes true and like the quotation says Richard has a terrifying dream making him panic and sweat. What happens in the dream is ghosts surround Richard and curse him saying “despair and die!” over and over again terrifying Richard through the night. But the scene with Richards terrifying dream was not included in the film.
Shakespeare draws in the audience to the side of evil because he tells the audience who Richard is going to kill or get killed, for example when he says “This day should Clarence be mew’d up, About a prophecy, which says that “G”, Of Edwards heirs the murderer shall be” This shows that heirs of Edward will be killed and by Richard. We know Richard will kill them because he has told us that he plans to kill them. He also says that killing the heirs of Edward will help him became king because when all the people next inline to be king are killed Richard will then have the throne. The way in which the audience is drawn in is by Richard letting the audience in on secrets that the other characters in the play don’t know about like when he tells the audience he’s going to kill the heirs of Edward and how he’s going to do it. Also because of Richards cleverness and well thought out ideas the audience would drift over to his side because they admire him for it. A section where Richard does this is the scene with the mayor where he wins over the mayor and says lots of nice things to the mayor and admits he can be ignorant. This is shown when he says
“I do suspect I have done some offence, That seems disgracious in the cities eyes, and that you come to reprehend my ignorance”
The play was relevant in its own time to the political situation because whilst the play was being performed
Elizabeth I reigned and she was Richmond’s grand daughter in reality. This is significant to the play because this had happened not so long ago in her family also because of Elizabeth being Richmond’s grand daughter it was essential that her right to be queen was established therefore Richmond had to be the “goody” and Richard the “baddie”. The film has been made relevant to the 20th century because in the film Richard is made out to be like Hitler. So this is showing that Richards character is very much like Hitler’s. Richard is also like Sadam Hussein and the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood Prince of Thieves. So there are two people who in real life who are or were actually like Richard and one fictional character who was like Richard. Therefore this shows that even a character made by Shakespeare four hundred years ago can influence the filmmakers today to make characters like Richard. All in all I basically think that the filmmakers today think that in a lot of cases a good film villain would be someone who is clever and ambitious but can be extremely evil. Yet at different points draw the audience on to his side because of his cleverness and the way he wins over some characters.
So Richard in the end goes to battle with Richmond and kills off many many men but eventually is stuck in battle and is running around to look for a horse but cannot find one. He says “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse” which basically means that he is about to be killed in battle and is saying he would give up his kingdom (not be king any more and lose all the power he worked hard to get) just so he could get a horse and escape and survive. This is because he now realises what he has done and all the work he has done to be king is really evil and now feels that he was wrong to have done what he did. In the end Richard dies by his head being chopped off by Richmond. I feel that the audience would respond to Richards’s death like “Oh good, I didn’t like him because he was horrible and evil” but after a while they will think that Richard has realised what he has done and can see that he was wrong. So they may feel sorry for Richard, which I think is what Shakespeare was trying to bring across.
I found the play quite enjoyable to watch. It had a few tense and dramatic moments, which kept me watching it. I think that Richards’s character was very effective and I feel Shakespeare has created a really clever villain who makes very clever remarks, which manipulate his enemies. The way Richard wins over Lady Ann I think is really clever and he should be admired for it. A couple of the remarks he says to Lady Ann are ”sweet saint” and “fairer than tongue can name thee” which means that there are no words that can describe her overwhelming beauty. These remarks flatter Lady Ann and that is how he wins her over.
