Professor Matthew Sergi
Critical Analysis - The Gift of Grief: Widowhood in Richard III
Submitted by Holly Barnes
February 13th, 2014
A century before
William Shakespeare’s Richard III was
written, mid- fifteenth century views of women were such that wives were like
children, not to be trusted and educated through the weight of the hand.[1]
This belief was not universal of course, but it was popular. Leon Batista
Alberti (1404-1472), wrote that husbands who confer with their wives about
important matters were “madmen”[2]. Women
though, were tied to men in inextricable ways; property, status, sustenance and
custody of their children. Upon the death of the husband, it was not uncommon
for many early modern wives to be left virtual paupers. First printed in 1597, Richard III’s main female characters,
all among the nobility, nevertheless find themselves as widows, facing
uncertain prospects and unbearable grief. In her article Mourning and Memory in Richard III, Paige Martin Reynolds suggests
that the very act of mourning served a purpose far greater than an emotional
outlet; it increased not only the memory of the losses of history, but also
arbitrated the future. Additionally, Reynolds argues that the act of mourning
as a ritual was used to propel the Protestant religion.[3] While not disputing these statements, this
essay endeavors to look closely at the state of grief experienced by Lady Anne,
Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret in Richard
III. Widowhood and the mourning which accompanied it created more than
spiritual value, but also corporeal, practical value. By examining the way
these female characters interact with men, the elevated status gained by these
women and the function of using grief as both a contest and a source of fear, I
will argue that these women are able to mutate their debilitated state of grief
into a state of power, and that the very deaths these women are lamenting,
prove ultimately beneficial for them.
As previously alluded to, the disparity in equality between men and
women in Elizabethan and Renaissance England was vast. Had the characters of
Lady Anne, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret not been under such extreme
emotional duress, it is improbable that the way Shakespeare depicts their
interactions with the noble men at court, would have been tolerated. It is
though the ladies grief gives them license to speak unabashedly, and with a
candor and vehemence towards Richard which would have been, prior to the deaths
of their husbands, unthinkable. All three characters speak in their mourning
from a place of equality, if not superiority, which specifically contradicts
the idea of a meek, subservient woman in the early modern period. In Act I.2, Anne curses Richard as “the
devil” and the “dreadful minister of hell”[4].
The audience of course will subsequently see that the memory of Anne’s husband
is seemingly not enough to prevent her capitulation to marry Richard, but her
fierce accusations toward Richard in this scene showcase how the extreme
emotion of Anne’s grief enabled her to speak from a place of passion and heart,
not a place of acquiescence. Evidence of this is also found in the dialogue of
Queen Margaret. In Act I.3, Margaret unleashes a firestorm of insults and
curses directed at Richard. Undeterred by her banishment, she comes forth and
spurred by her grief, speaks her prophecy with an undercurrent of violence.
Although her words are mocked and seemingly discounted, I would argue that it
is from a place of fear that the men in the group speak. Buckingham and Rivers
both acknowledge that “my hair doth stand on end to hear her curses”[5].
This fear that Margaret has instilled through her words is tantamount to power,
and has elevated her status from a woman many are trying to forget to a woman
who is hard to ignore.
As the saying goes, “misery loves company”. This is both true and untrue
in Richard III. Paige Martin Reynolds
writes that the “shared experience of grief and the desire for vengeance bring
the play’s female characters into alliance with one another”[6].
Additionally she notes that the women “have a strong sense of competition with one another”[7].
It is this sense of competition which I would like to elaborate upon. I would
argue that
the contest of grief goes beyond any superficial level of “who lost more”, but
rather the superior level of grief can be seen as a source of internal power
and pride amongst the women. This pride coupled with the grief can be seen to
lay the foundation for their want of retaliation against Richard. Strengthening
my previous argument that the grief of the women allow them to speak from a
state of equality, it is in this scene of almost melodramatic, dueling
lamentations that Elizabeth asks “Ah,
who shall hinder me to wail and weep?”[8].
Paige Martin Reynolds explains that this question is meant to showcase the
“exceptional authority granted to women in mourning, especially significant in
a society in which female silence was idealized”[9]. In
this scene grief brought upon by widowhood yields a sense of power in the woman
that is more than internal. It is indeed visible power – however temporary, that
without
their respective tragedies society would not have afforded them.
Finally and perhaps
most importantly is the way in which Richard
III utilizes widowhood as a means to substantially elevate the main female
characters, most significantly seen in the outcomes Shakespeare writes for Lady
Anne and Queen Elizabeth. Act I.2 sees
Lady Anne’s disgust and contempt for Richard.
At this early point in the play it is unthinkable that Lady Anne would
subsequently become Richard’s wife. This of course is the path she chooses to
follow, although reluctantly, which ultimately leads to her becoming Queen, if
only for a short duration. Paige Martin Reynolds writes that Anne’s
“acquiescence…signals, to Richard a failure of memory”[10].
Conversely, this can be seen as a strengthening of her memory of her murdered
husband and a strategy to exact some type of future revenge or justice. Had Anne’s
husband and father in-law not been killed by Richard, she could have been
conceivably relegated to the fate of Margaret; a once noble woman left to
languish in insignificance. Instead her status is elevated from nobility to
royalty. Elizabeth, grieving over the loss of not only her beloved husband but
also her sons, finds too that widowhood brings unexpected opportunities. The
death of her husband precipitates Richards rises to power. However upon his
death on the battlefield, Richmond, who would become Henry VII, ascends the
throne and in the final scene (Act V.5), vows to unite the houses of the War of
the Roses: “All this divided York and Lancaster, Divided in their dire
division, O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth, The true succeeders of each royal
house, By God’s fair ordinance conjoin together”[11]. Queen no longer, Elizabeth is now mother to
the Queen of England, a position high above that which she presumably would
have maintained had Richard lived and maintained his monarchy. With the renewal
of the Tudor dynasty, England begins again to enjoy a relatively calm and
continuous reign. This elevated station for the former Queen Elizabeth is personally
beneficial, just as the peace is a relief for the country.
While Paige Martin
Reynolds article, Mourning and Memory in
Richard III discusses the idea of grief used as a tool to not only foster
an ongoing bond to the memory of those lost as well as a tool used to promote
Protestant theology, this examination sought to expand upon the idea of grief
in Richard III as a source of power –
both abstractly and tangibly, for the lead female characters. I have argued
that the power found in grief manifests itself in various different ways; the
ability for a woman of the age to speak freely and emotionally, no matter how
offensive men may have deemed it, the ability to gain personal pride and power
as well as camaraderie in a superior level of grief to those with a similar
plight, and the tangible, elevation of status within the social structure of
fifteenth century England. Further work would be useful in a detailed
examination of the men’s reaction to the female character’s grief in Richard the III, as glimpses of those
reactions can be seen in the fear and anxiety instilled in Buckingham and
Rivers by Queen Margaret’s outburst of curses. What this exploration has shown
however, is that in the depths of these characters’ grief, widowhood proves to
be ultimately beneficial for Lady Anne, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret,
providing them with a strength and source of power they may never have been
able to achieve had they remained married and obligated to the ties that
previously
bound them.
Bibliography
Coffin, Judith et al. Western
Civilizations. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
Reynolds, Paige Martin. Mourning
and Memory in Richard III. Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Ltd, 2008.
Shakespeare, William. Ed. Peter Holland. Richard III. New York: Penguin Books, 2000.
[1] Judith Coffin, Robert Stacey, Joshua
Cole, Carol Symes, Western Civilizations,
(New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2011) p.375
[2] Ibid, p.375
[3] Paige Martin Reynolds, Mourning and Memory in Richard III, (Oxfordshire:
Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2008)p.19
[4] William Shakespeare, ed. Peter
Holland, Richard III, (New York:
Penguin Books, 2000)p. 13
[5] Ibid, p. 35
[6] Paige Martin Reynolds, Mourning and Memory in Richard III,
(Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2008), p. 23
[7] Ibid, p.22
[8] William Shakespeare, ed. Peter
Holland, Richard III, (New York:
Penguin Books, 2000), p. 55
[9] Paige Martin Reynolds, Mourning and Memory in Richard III, (Oxfordshire:
Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2008), p. 22
[10] Paige Martin Reynolds, Mourning and Memory in Richard III,
(Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Ltd., 2008), p. 19
[11] William Shakespeare, ed. Peter
Holland, Richard III, (New York:
Penguin Books, 2000), p. 158
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