Richard III

Richard III 

After reading the JSTOR article I was surprised we did not talk much about it in class.  

I remember being asked in class, is Richard's deformity that makes him evil? or is it his evil ways and thinking that makes him deformed?

The JSTOR article discussed how being deformed was, in fact, an excess in the sexual abilities, which may explains perhaps why Lady Anne gave in to Richard's manipulative personality.  I think that he was already an evil individual and that his deformity worked in his favor that facilitated him to be evil.  I do not think that Richard has ever acted on his evil thoughts and plans up until it was time to crown a king, as a reader we can observe that through out the play killing and manipulating people becomes easier to him.

Since the very beginning of the play it is clear that Richard knew exactly what he was doing in order to get what he wanted.  I believe that Shakespeare was able to pick up this traits from the manipulative people in his life that he once met, this people do become 'ugly' in a sense that they should not be trusted and yet people are still in their lives, perhaps this is the reason why he described him as a deformed individual and kept reminding us, the readers, about his malformation.

I believe that the JSTOR article was talking in favor of Richard.  It talked a lot about masculinity and apparently Richard was everything a man should be and was, and his physical appearance was just that excessive masculinity in him.

People who are just plain evil and manipulative as Richard tend to have a certain traumatic event in their childhood that drives them to be evil in order to get what they wanted.  I think it makes sense that Richard was made fun of as a child for his physical appearance, I can see that as an event that has pushed him to prove to himself that he can have all the power.

I loved it how toward the end of the play he starts talking to himself, I believe that evil individuals who know that have done wrong in their very deep subconscious have to remind themselves and confirm that what they did was NOT wrong, justifiable and right, in order to keep themselves sane.  By seeing all the ghosts, it questions his sanity and in his monologue he was reassuring himself that everything was perfectly fine.

I really enjoyed the JSTOR article, it was a fun read, definitely some interesting points of views and conclusions about Richard.