Only essay i typed for RIII
Not possible for me in exam conditions, but thought i might as well post it up as a reference point.
“I never was nor never will be false”
‘Richard III demonstrates how difficult it is to determine who is true and who is false.’ Discuss.
Set in the volatile political climate of fifteenth century England, in which corruption within the upper echelons of society was rampant, William Shakespeare’s grand denouement to his minor historical tetralogy, Richard III, contextualises a gripping antithesis between outward appearance and inner intention. Throughout the play, theatregoers are held in awe by the compelling contradictions between the eponymous villain’s words and his thoughts, as he artfully exposes the inherent difficulty with which his unsuspecting victims attempt to distinguish between truth and deception. Shakespeare primary means of exposing this inherent difficulty is that the play’s audience remains privy to Richard’s true designs through his soliloquies, whilst his ingenuous victims are entirely unaware of the evil behind his masterfully engineered facade of feigned altruism. Whether it be Clarence, who is too unsuspecting and far too easily manipulated, the foolish and overconfident Hastings, who is too ignorant to heed early warnings, or Buckingham, too bombastic and proud in his own ability to manipulate, all of Richard’s victims find it difficult, or even impossible, to read his true intentions. Shakespeare has, however, constructed particular characters who demonstrate that whilst difficult, it is possible to differentiate truth from falsehood in the face of Richard’s expert deception. Stanley, who out-manoeuvres Richard through his own elusive rhetoric, and Queen Elizabeth, who correctly suspect’s Richard’s designs, show that it is possible to see through deception with sufficient political acumen. Ultimately, however, these characters are relatively ineffectual in Richard’s demise, which reveals that the power to distort truth and dominate others through falsehood remains a potent weapon in the world of corruption in which Richard III takes its setting.
From the outset, Richard establishes himself as a villain who will revel in his casuistry. He confides with his audience, as he reveals in his opening soliloquy, “plots have I laid, inductions dangerous”, and that he is “subtle, false and treacherous”. Thereafter, theatregoers are aware of his sinister intentions, and that he is extremely confident in his ability to “bustle” in a corrupt world. One of Shakespeare’s intentions here is to allow audiences to prepare themselves for what is to come - audiences now expect Richard to be a villain who will “clothe” his “naked villainy” and “seem a saint when most [he] plays the devil”. The power of this development becomes apparent when Richard, living up to the very expectations that he has induced, begins to establish a devastating rhetorical directorship over other characters’ actions. The audience have been spared from the destructive power of his ability to manipulate, but his ill-fated victims, oblivious to his true intentions, are slowly but surely drawn in to his web of deceit. Immediately after Richard completes his opening soliloquy, he adopts the facade of discerning family man, and meets Clarence on his way to imprisonment in the Tower of London. Shakespeare successfully juxtaposes the audience’s full knowledge of Richard’s misanthropic motives and Clarence’s utterly unsuspecting demeanour to highlight how impossible it is for Clarence, who has had no prior exposure to Richard’s inner machinations, to identify Richard’s evil. Richard’s mellifluous tones, as he falsely re-assures Clarence, “This deep disgrace in brotherhood, touches me deeper than you can imagine”, construct an impregnable facade of brotherly concern and truthfulness. He simultaneously flaunts his true intentions, with his ironic foreshadowing of Clarence’s death; “O belike his majesty hath some intent, that you should be new christened in the tower”. Such is Richard’s adroitness with words, that Clarence, and other victims in the same fashion, are completely deceived, with almost no way of determining the falseness of his external manner. Thus, Shakespeare, by exposing audiences to the truth and then displaying the onstage actors’ struggles to see through Richard’s manipulative facades, successfully conveys the difficulty with which truth and falsehood are differentiated, especially when they are contorted by the hands of a master deceiver.
Whilst a large part of this difficulty is attributed to Richard’s expert ability to hide his true intentions, Shakespeare goes further as he exposes it as a fatal human flaw, through his construction of characters that instigate their own demise due to their ineptitude in the face of Richard’s evil. Hastings is palpably oblivious, and his naivety transcends even the label of innocence. Indeed, it categorises him as purely foolish. His failure to heed omens is definitely ironic, and darkly humorous, as is revealed by his ‘well informed’ view of Richard’s standpoint: “I know he loves me well”. This is closely followed by a mockery of Richard’s true character, “For by his face straight shall you know his heart”. Hastings meets a cruel end, which reinforces Shakespeare’s view that a remarkable inability to see through falsehood can consign one to an eventual demise in a corrupt and unforgiving world. Richard’s final political victim also exhibits a similar form of naivety. Buckingham is confident that he will be spared, given that he has supported Richard in his meteoric ascent to the throne. Moreover, he believes that his own ability to manipulate can save him. How wrong he is when he too is manoeuvred by Richard to a point from which there is no return. First, Richard flatters him, “My other self, my counsel’s consistory/My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin”, and nourishes his overconfidence. Then, when he asks him, flippantly, to complicit in the murder of the princes, Buckingham knows he is doomed, for his conscience will not allow him to proceed. When he flees the audience are shown that any form of misplaced trust in Richard can only result in unpalatable consequences. With Buckingham’s final execution, Shakespeare reveals that even the most wily of men have great difficulty in reading the true intentions of a villain who is so effectual in his ability to conceal these intentions.
Shakespeare does, however, boldly contrasts the ineptitude of Richard’s victims with characters that have a laudable ability to see through Richard’s outwards illusory appearance. The most notable of these is Lord Stanley – a man of immense political astuteness who confronts Richard with his own subtle and elusive rhetoric, effectively outplaying him at his own game. Stanley shares with Richard the rare ability to conceal inner intensions with dramatic effect, as he appeases Richard in his flurry of panic before the battle. Richard is ever more fearful, claiming “Thou wilt revolt, and fly to him [Richmond], I fear”. At the surface, Stanley’s reply is frank, “No, my good lord; therefore mistrust me not”, yet is also quite vague. He placates Richard, yet at the same time does not commit himself fully to his words, which allows him to masterfully out-manoeuvre Richard and present the king with the same veneer of feigned trust that the king has so successfully used to manipulate, and then annihilate, his victims in the play’s earlier sequences. It seems appropriate that he survives until the end because of this ability, which is perhaps one way Shakespeare emphasises the magnitude of Richard’s ability to deceive – only a man that is as good as Richard in distorting outward appearance can escape his expansive net. A second character who does not fall prey to Richard’s manipulative charade is Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, she suspects Richard from the beginning, indicated by her remark when Richard appears at court, his deceptive efforts at their height, “Come, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester”. The Lancastrian Queen Margaret also sees through Richard’s facade, as she warns Buckingham, “take heed of yonder dog”. However, both Stanley and the women look on powerlessly as Richard murders his way to the throne. Eventually, it is Richmond, a symbol of providence as much as he is a character, that ousts Richard from the throne. This eventuality fits Shakespeare’s wider intention to depict Richard as a potent and unstoppable villain, only able to be defeated through a form of divine intervention, regardless of whether his deception can be met with counter-deception, or whether it could be seen through by particular characters.
The conflict between appearance and reality is a major theme in Richard III, and Richard’s ability to distort the two shows how immensely difficult it can be to distinguish between truth and falsehood in his words. This is evidenced through the behaviour of his unsuspecting victims, who are completely taken in by his expert use of language and feigned veneer of bonhomie. The ultimate deaths of Clarence and Hastings, and even Richard’s chief accomplice, Buckingham, show that those who underestimate this ability are consigned to an undesirable fate. Shakespeare shows that naivety in the face of deception makes that deception even more powerful, which edifies the Elizabethan audience as much about the nature of the relationship between outward appearance and inner intention as it intensifies the magnitude of Richard’s villainy. Shakespeare does, however, give his audience characters who have an ability to see through Richard. The fact that these characters are ultimately ineffectual in preventing Richard from his rise to the throne, however, reveals that a powerful ability to manipulate and distort the truth is difficult to counteract if only a limited number of individuals have the ability to oppose it.