Richard III's Language Influencing his Self-Image and the External World

Andrea Piccinin

ENG331H1
Professor: Matthew Sergi
Monday February 17, 2014
998260126

Richard III's Language Influencing his Self-Image and the External World

            In Shakespeare's Richard III, he presents his own interpretation of the thought process Richard has leading to his evil actions in order to achieve kingship.  Richard is constantly lying and contrasting his thoughts and opinions towards people by having him talk to many characters to show these differences.  In Brian Carroll's article, "Richard as Waking Nightmare: Barthesian Dream, Myth, and Memory in Shakespeare's Richard III" , he describes in detail each of these abstract concepts by calling it a metaphor; "In the case of Richard III , in which the action unspools from a power-mad, corkscrew mind, Shakespeare's use of metaphor helps audiences comprehend that mind's evil and amorality, even if the causes remain a mystery.  In fact, Richard might be meant to portray or serve as metaphor for a purely moral concept, such as justice," (Carroll, 31).  While Carroll is correct about Shakespeare presenting the mind of Richard to the audience, the causes of his mind are not a mystery and more than just a metaphor for morality.  I will argue that through the language Richard uses, he reveals the self-pity he has and how he uses language to try to conceal this image by creating an illusionary world but, ironically, ends up revealing his true thoughts.   

The process of converting Richard’s reality into illusions is almost immediately shown in his opening monologue in Act 1, Scene 1.  When Richard is describing his appearance, he says he has been, “Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,” (1.1. 19).  Since Richard feels he has been cheated by nature, he wants to manipulate it.  Since he is unsatisfied with how he entered “into this breathing world” (1.1. 21), his goal is to create his own world filled with illusions to benefit himself.  Therefore, Richard has to use compelling language when conversing with the other characters to create this illusion so that he can easily manipulate them and no longer pity himself due to his appearance.  Since he is filled with self-pity, he thinks he must act as a villain since he, “cannot prove a lover,” (1.1. 28).  By Richard thinking acting evil will compensate for confidence or power he does not have, it makes him a more believable character, and more than just a metaphor for justice (Carroll, 31).  Richard represents how some people explain the behaviour and reasoning behind bullying; to hide shame by belittling others and to boost their own self-esteem.  It is not until the end of the play does his disruption of the natural order of the world backfire and give him revelations.

One of Richard’s first thorough performances of this illusion he has created for himself is through his interactions with Lady Anne after he has murdered her husband, Henry VI.  Lady Anne is devastated about the death of her husband and through her devastation, she says truths about Richard’s actions.  She says killing Henry VI is, “inhuman and unnatural,” (1.2. 58) which is true since Richard uses conscious thought to decide that he will be the villain since he cannot prove to be a lover.  Since Richard’s villainous actions are unnatural and planned, it is his performance and illusions becoming more concrete and out into the real world.  Richard’s excuse for killing Henry VI was because, “he was fitter for that place than earth,” (1.2. 106).  Even though he does not believe this since it is all just excuses, he presents the motif of different worlds within the play.  Richard gets rid of Henry from his world on Earth in order to make his illusionary world more beneficent for himself.  He wants to make his inner monologue world a reality for not only him, but for everyone else.

Since Richard has proven to be aware of physical appearances and how it affects his mentality, he uses his own perception of physicality onto language when speaking with Lady Anne as another excuse as to why he killed Henry VI.  He blames Lady Anne’s beauty as the, “cause of that effect,” (1.2.119) and says that her beauty, “haunt[ed] me in my sleep,” (1.2. 120).  Richard has turned the meaning of “beauty” into a negative concept because he believes he does not have any beauty, so creating the illusion that beauty is negative is his way of compensating for it.  While the reasoning behind why Richard killed Henry is supposed to be understood as a lie and possibly sarcasm for the audience, it highlights how his dreams later in the play significantly affect his mind and how he has self-pity for not having beauty.  Richard’s envy of Lady Anne’s beauty combines and implies both of his truthful monologues in Act 1 Scene 1 and Act 5 Scene 4, which involve self-pity and the haunting in his dreams.  While Richard’s goal is to mask his self-pity through manipulative language to create illusions, he ends up revealing it by placing negative connotative language onto Lady Anne’s beauty.    

            Since Richard has been keeping up a lie about himself in front of everyone else through his words, he has not had self-reflective honest monologues like his initial one in Act 1, Scene 1.  This is addressed by all of the ghosts Richard has killed in Act 5, Scene 4 since almost all of them say one thing in common to Richard-- "think".  While this whole time Richard has thought his illusionary world he created has been working in favour for himself, the ghosts make him aware of his honest thoughts about himself that has, "a thousand several tongues," (5.4. 172) rather than the speech he has been emitting into the external world. Since thinking is internal and personal, he is honest with himself and is able to reflect without putting on a "show" or illusion.  He now has sudden overwhelming self-awareness of his actions and the evil he has done and is stuck between loving himself (5.4. 166), like he wanted to all along, or completely loathing (line 168) and being afraid of himself (5.4. 161).  When he says, "I am a villain.--Yet I lie; I am not," (5.4. 170), it is one of the first honest statements he says in awhile.  It is the self- realization that he is not truly a villain like he has been portraying to himself and everyone else, but has been playing the role of it; it is honest confusion.  The illusions he has created onto himself through language has backfired now that they have acted as karma to distort with the reality of his world.  The language is now revealing the real truth because he used "thought", which is the opposite of speaking.  In the end, he does not pity himself but not because he loves himself.  He says, "Find in myself no pity to myself," (5.4. 182) because he murdered so many people so he realizes he does not deserve pity.  While he succeeded in not worrying about his physical appearance, he failed in trying to fully accept himself considering he carries self-hatred and realization that he deserves no pity.  Ironically, the abstractness of thoughts and dreams reveal the truth while language and external communications with others create false realities. 

Shakespeare uses many abstract themes in his play to show the, "power that illusion could exert on reality," (Carroll, 31).  However, Shakespeare shows how these illusions are only temporary because lying and ignoring reality for too long comes back to haunt you, in this representation, literally.  While some  may perceive Richard as a symbol of pure evil, Shakespeare makes Richard a believable human by using dynamic language to his dialogue to reveal his troubling and self-conscious thoughts and his attempts to create a false world in hopes to fix his insecurities.   

 

 

Work Cited

Carroll, Brian.  Richard as Waking Nightmare: Barthesian Dream, Myth, and Memory in Shakespeare's Richard III.  Visual Communication Quarterly 20.1. March 2013. Pg 28-45.

Shakespeare, William. The Tragedy of Richard the Third. Ed. Peter Holland. New York: Penguin, 2000. Print.