#12: The Tragedy of Richard III

Shakespeare, William: The Tragedy of Richard III. New York: Washington Square Press, 1960. Print. 148 pages.
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SETTING: 15th century England.
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SUMMARY: Chronicles the events that contributed to Richard III's coronation as King of England, and his subsequent death two years later.
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FAVORITE QUOTE: "Murderer 2: The urging of the word 'judgement' hath bred a kind of remorse in me.
Murderer 1: What? Art thou afraid?
Mur 2: Not to kill him, having a warrant; but to be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me.
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Mur 1: Remember our reward when the deed's done.
Mur 2: Come, he dies!  I had forgot the reward.
Mur 1: Where's thy conscience now?
Mur 2: O, in the Duke of Gloucester's purse." - Act 1, Scene IV, lines 111-116 and 127-131.
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As you can see, June wasn't a particularly productive reading month; however, it was productive in many other ways.  For example, I spent loads of time with family and friends, and also developed an obsession with the TV show Futurama!  To get back into the groove of reading, I decided to pick up one of Shakespeare's plays.  I absolutely hated Shakespeare when I was younger, and actually wrote a short essay in my high school freshman English class about how much I "loathed him" (I actually did use the word loathe).  Now I understand that I was just too stupid to appreciate his brilliance.  Luckily, my brain has acquired some smarts since then, and I gave Shakespeare another try earlier this year.  Not so surprisingly, I found that I love his work now!  I usually split my reviews into a section about things I liked about the book, and things I didn't like.  Because I don't think I have an adequate knowledge of Shakespeare's time to assess logistical points of the play that I didn't like, I'm going to switch that out with a "characters I hated and things that really upset me in this play" section.
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Things I liked about this play:

1. England!  Monarchy!  Kings, queens, dukes, duchesses, and all the fantastical, false images that surround such times and topics.
2. It's a play, and I really enjoy reading plays now.  Especially witty plays taking place in ye-olde-England (I stole this phrase from a friend).
3. The format of the play, which makes it easy to follow the characters and keep track of who is speaking when.
4. Gives an insight into just how horrible life really was back then.  Speaking for myself, I have this weird mish-mash in my head that jumbles the evils that I know existed during that time with the romantic notions that surrounds monarchies and royalty.  Throw in the skewed view I have of romance thanks to Jane Austen (whose stories take place in the 19th century, a whole other time period), and you end up with a horrible mess.  Plays like this one serve as a nice reminder of what reality was probably like in 15th century England.
5. The series of ghosts of the people Richard kills throughout the play that appear in one of his dreams.  They all tell him to "despair and die" right before the big battle at the end of the play.  Discouraging, no?  And rightly so!  He is an evil man.
6. The fact that Queen Elizabeth (Richard III's sister-in-law) doesn't give in to Richard's request that she woo her daughter (his niece) for him.  An uncle marrying his niece?  BARF.

Characters I hated and things that really upset me in this play:

1. Richard III.  He is pure evil.  Pure, pure evil!
2. Anne Neville.  She is pure stupid.  Richard III kills her husband, and somehow he managed to convince her to marry him.  Granted women had very little stability during that time and had to rely on men for their very livelihood, but I'm sure there were other options available apart from the man who murdered her husband!  And whom she claims to hate five minutes prior to accepting his proposal!  Fickle indeed.
3. Speaking of fickleness, the last thing I hated was the overall fickleness of nearly every character in this play.  Their loyalty changes sides every other moment, and they are the precise definition of the phrase, "every man for himself."

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I spent the summer of 2011 in Mexico doing a research project, and supplemented much of my free time reading historical fiction novels about women who reigned in 15th/16th century England.  I was even more excited to read this play because I read The White Queen by Philippa Gregory during that summer; the novel is entirely about Queen Elizabeth (Richard III's sister-in-law).  It was interesting to now read a literary piece with Richard III as the main character and Queen Elizabeth as a supplemental character, because it added to my knowledge about the two historical figures.  Of course, I have to include the disclaimer that there is no way of knowing just how many of the facts that the fiction is based off of are truly facts.  But if we indulge ourselves and do believe all the facts are true, this play gave me a slightly better understanding of the history behind the House of York, House of Lancaster, the Plantagenets, etc.  Still, British royal history is really confusing, and I totally understand how people who are truly invested in the subject need to dedicate their lives to understanding just a small slice of that world.

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Recommend?  Yes!