Women in Richard III
Richard III has an unusually large cast of female characters: 'women are assigned over 22 percent of the lines in this play, by far the greatest number in any of Shakespeare's English histories.'1 However, Nicholas Brooke has observed that 'the flexibility of private speech in this play is almost entirely confined to Richard'.2 This is through the power of his language. In the patriarchal society of the Renaissance period men were allowed freedom of speech, where as women were supposed ot be chaste, silent and obedient. During the Renaissance; Femininity... was presented as no more than a set of negatives. The requirement of chastity was the overriding measure of female gender. Woman not only had to be chaste but had to be seen chaste: silence, humility and modesty were the signifiers so.3 This means that if women were to be silent, then men would have total control; and therefore, language is gendered. None of the female characters have a soliloquy, even Margaret who is the most powerful female character. Jean E. Howard & Phyllis Rackin describe the women as the 'direct antitheses'4 of the men in the play, and that 'all of the female characters ...are highborn English women who speak in undifferentiated language, formal blank verse that constitutes the standard language of the playscript'.5 I disagree with this, as both Lady Anne and Elizabeth use Richard's style of prose