Elizabethan Views Of Richard III
My Essay on Whether What Richard III did was Right, or WrongKing Richard III, in my opinion, was a greedy, yet determined man who would do whatever it took to achieve the position of king of England. What he did to get to this position was wrong, however, how he went about achieving what he wanted shows that he had intelligence. Having to kill a family member to get to where he wanted to be, did not even stop him. I believe that him doing this was very dishonorable. Even the book, Shakespeare and the Renaissance Code of Honor says "dishonor is worse than death." In this same book I found a piece of information saying "If the renaissance aristocracy loved and pursued honor intensely, and with it's whole being. It follows logically that dishonor was the one thing in life which could not be tolerated." Another quote from the same book on honor says "Since honor was so highly esteemed not only to one's own life, but also the lives of those close and dear to oneself, might be sacrificed in order to maintain one's reputation", which is almost exactly what Richard did. As stated above, in my opinion, I think that what Richard III did to achieve his position was wrong, but he does
have a massive amount of intelligence to be able to pull off his master plan. His goal is to become the King of England, and he would go to any means necessary to get this. Although what he did proved to be morally in correct, the also proved to be intelligent ideas. For example, he sees a path he can take that will lead him right to the thrown, but his brother, Clarence, is next in line to inherit it. What Richard does to prevent this from happening is he has his own brother murdered. That, in my views, is one of the most dishonorable things he does in the play. Yet he executes this plan very wisely. The reason behind this being that he hired two hit-men to do it for him, and the authorities have no way of pinning this crime on Richard. From one internet site Richard in the Mirror of the Centuries, it says, "Shakespeare's characterization of Richard III has been accepted as a historical portrait - a portrait of the most wicked of English kings. The question is, whether this is not rather exaggerated?" After reading further in this document, I find that it blatantly says "From the very first beginning, in the opening soliloquy, Richard tells the spectators about his own wickedness and he really does prove a villain! He verifies the impression we get in the first scene throughout the drama by acting and thinking the way he does. Always doing what
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Approximate Word count = 922
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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