Gary Leggett
Prof. Matthew Sergi
English 331H1S
February 17, 2014
Lost
Children in Richard III
William
Shakespeare’s Richard III deals
with the loss and memory of familial figures in a complex manner. In Paige
Martin Reynolds’ “Mourning and Memory in Richard
III,” the author asserts, “mourning is the work
of women—Lady Anne, Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, and the Duchess of York—who use the power of memory to navigate the space
between ‘magic’ and ‘memorialism’” (19). Although
Reynolds’ argument poses an interesting line of inquiry, the formulation of
this argument overlooks the importance of mourning children in the text – both
male and female. To illustrate the fusion of child and female mourning in the
play, I will first examine the display of group mourning in Act 2, Scene 2. Secondly,
I will look at how Clarence’s son in particular receives misleading information
to confuse his mourning that allegorically represents the passage of truth
between the generations. Finally, I will examine the implications of Richard’s
depiction as a childlike figure, and how he ultimately succumbs to the mourning
figures in his “babbling dreams” (5.3.309). These factors all combine to situate
childhood mourning as a central thematic element in our understanding of Richard III, creating a need for revision
to Reynolds’ essay to address this factor.
When Queen Elizabeth enters Act 2, Scene
2, the female and child characters begin to mourn their familial losses together.
The group mourning escalates to a point where the scene approaches the absurd.
Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess, and Clarence’s two children contest over who is
grieving more:
QUEEN ELIZABETH. Ah for my husband, for my dear lord
Edward.
CHILDREN. Ah for our father, for our dear lord Clarence.
DUCHESS OF YORK. Alas for both, both mine, Edward and
Clarence.
QUEEN ELIZABETH. What stay had I but Edward? and he’s
gone.
CHILDREN. What stay had we but Clarence? and he’s gone.
DUCHESS OF YORK. What stays had I but they? and they are
gone. (2.2.71-76)
Syntactically
similar declarations of bereavement repeat in the above-manner three times, turning
the mourning process into a circular, farcical competition. Moreover, Shakespeare
has presented the females and the children all sharing identical forms of mourning, as they
each lament their familial losses. In the wake of Richard’s crimes, the females
and children become a single, fused entity with their displays of grief.
Indeed, mourning is not solely “the work of
women” (17), as Reynolds suggests, the children represent half of the mourners
in this scene.
In 2.2, Clarence’s son also presents
us with an allegorical representation of the distortion of historical truth.
The scene opens with the boy asking his grandmother, the Duchess of York, “is
our father dead?” At first, the Duchess deceivingly says, “No,
boy” (2.2.2). The boy’s grandmother continues to give muddled answers to further
questioning, eventually confirming that Clarence is indeed dead (2.2.8-19). As
Clarence’s son attempts to learn more, his understanding is distorted before he
finds the truth. The Duchess of York appears elsewhere in the text as a person
that has no grievances with the Duke of Clarence or his family, suggesting that
she was simply not prepared to discuss Clarence’s death with the children at
this moment. However, the Duchess then informs the boy that his uncle Richard
has lied to him about how the death happened: “Ah, that deceit should steal
such gentle shape” (2.2.27-32). Richard attempts to convince the child that
Clarence’s death was caused by the king, “provoked to it by the queen”
(2.2.21). Richard’s lie has displaced the truth of the murder in the boy’s mind,
making it the second time in this scene that the child’s understanding of these
events has been distorted. The fact that Clarence’s son has received two direct
lies about his father’s death (in a short span of time) suggests that Shakespeare
is commenting on the nature of truth in this scene; more specifically, these
lies display the way that historical truth is distorted through generations. As
Shakespeare’s Richard III amalgamates
historical information into one concise story, we lose a great deal of factual
evidence for the sake of artistic representation. The truth is distorted for Clarence’s boy, just as the truth is distorted by Shakespeare’s
amalgamations of timelines in the play, just as the truth was distorted for the sources that Shakespeare drew from,
ad infinitum. Clarence’s son learns
that his father is indeed dead, and that his grandmother suspects his uncle’s involvement,
but these facts teeter on the possibility of being lost to him through the different
familial generations that are involved. Struggling to find the truth, Clarence’s boy is subject to the outside influence of those
who came before him.
Another point of significance that
complicates Richard’s relationship with children is apparent when he enters 2.2
and childishly interrupts his mourning sister-in-law by claiming, “none can
help our harms by wailing them” (2.2.103). The fact that Richard terminates the
act of mourning in this scene in such a brazen and selfish manner is
significant, as it presents him as a self-centered and childlike figure. As Richard harangues his sister,
he notices that his mother is also present: “I did not see your grace. Humbly
on my knee / I crave your blessing” (2.2.105-06). By not noticing his mother’s
presence, Richard displays a detachment from his familial relations. Immediately
trying to quell the damage that his crimes have imparted on others, Richard is
blind to the presence of his own mother. The notion of Richard’s detachment
from his mother is furthered when she blesses him and he tells us, in aside,
that her words did not include a wish for him to live a long life: “That is the
butt end of a mother’s blessing; / I marvel that her grace did leave it out”
(2.2.110-11). Richard’s childlike dissatisfaction with his mother’s blessing
does not even acknowledge the recent murders that might be affecting her current
state of mind. A child removed, Richard obstructs the mourning of his mother with
a display of dispassion to her thoughts and behaviour, promoting our
understanding of his childlike self-centeredness that remains unexplained
elsewhere in the text. Richard’s familial indifference also returns in 4.4, when
he speaks to his mother in an unfamiliar manner. Responding to Richard’s bold
and detached wording, the Duchess asks: “Art thou my son?” (4.4.155). Now in
the position of the throne, Richard no longer hides his detachment from his
mother, intensifying his psychological issues with childhood in the play.
Paradoxically, Richard presents a
childlike manner on many occassions, drawing the notion of youthfulness closer
toward a central thematic element of Richard
III. For example, at the end of 2.2, Richard tells Buckingham that, “I, as
a child, will go by thy direction” (2.2.153). In the last two lines of this
scene – after we have just seen Richard’s distortion and displacement of a child’s
mourning – the title character specifically uses the image of childlike
obedience to describe his inner thoughts. Richard’s wording does not only
display his attempt to ally himself with the innocence of children, the timing
of his childlike appeal comes just after he has burst into the scene in a
selfish and childlike manner. The timing of Richard’s invocation of childhood
imagery effectively doubles his childishness, in both his display and in his
words.
A key instance in which Reynolds’ focus on the
females of Richard III fails to acknowledge
the import of child mourning comes at a climactic point in the text – as
Richard delivers the last direct mention of his prophetic dream: “Let not our
babbling dreams affright our souls” (5.3.309). In this statement, Richard
proclaims that he does not want his frightening dream to affect the battle to
come, but what is interesting about his use of language is that he refers to his
prophetic dream with the adjective babbling.
The term babbling certainly has implications
of talking excessively and meaninglessly, but it also has connotations with infants.
The word babbling is assumed to
derive from the syllable /ba/, “which is characteristic of early infantile
vocalization” (“babble, v.1”). The last time that Richard’s haunting dream is
mentioned before it becomes realized makes this reference significant;
furthermore, the fact that Richard refers to it as a “babbling” dream invokes
the concept that infantile notions can present truths, even in the face of
distortion and displacement (as Richard attempts to accomplish). The ghosts, if
they manifest because of female memory, as Reynolds suggests (7), they are
joined in 5.3 by the evocation of children as Richard prepares for his ultimate
downfall. To this extent, the children of the play present a pivotal role in the
depiction of Richard’s final retribution.
Shakespeare uses the children in Richard III to present several
interesting notions in captivating manners. For instance, different characters
give distorted and displacing information to Clarence’s son while he begins the
mourning of his father (2.2.2, 2.2.31-32), and these manipulations of
information bring us to consider how historical truth becomes distorted through
generations. Furthermore, Richard is presented in a childlike manner throughout
the text, and he ultimately succumbs to the truth of his self-described
“babbling dreams” (5.3.309). Richard says of himself in his opening monologue that
he is an “unfinished…scarce half made up” person (1.1.20-21), and Shakespeare
certainly presents him in that manner, psychologically. Paige Martin
Reynolds’ “Mourning and Memory in Richard
III” would benefit from a revision that considers the
fact that the children of Richard III
share the role of mourning with the female characters, they are a part of Richard,
and assist in moving him toward his ultimate end.
Works Cited
"babble, v.1". OED Online. December 2013. Oxford UP. 13 Feb 2014
Reynolds, Paige Martin. "Mourning and Memory in Richard III." ANQ 21.2 (2008): 19+.
Academic OneFile. Web. 28 Jan. 2014.
Shakespeare, William. The
Tragedy of King Richard the Third. NYC: Penguin Group. 2000. Print.
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