Richard III out does Iago

Othello introduced us to Iago, a conniving and manipulative fraud who schemed and conspired against the other characters to ultimately destroy Othello, his only incentive being his own personal “impotences”. Richard III is very similar to Iago. He is a villain and a lone conspirer against the other characters of the play. I think it could be argued that the Duke of Gloucester is an even more corrupt villain because he is plotting against his own flesh and blood and sets about seducing a woman whose husband and father he personally slain, all through the practice of manipulation and speech.

In Richard's first monologue he describes to the audience his deformed physical attributes which in some ways explains why he feels the need to turn his brothers against each other in order to gain control of the throne. I watched Ian McKellan's performance as the Duke of Gloucester in the 1995 movie version of Shakespeare's Richard III. Aside from the choice the director made for the time in which the story takes place (fascist Britain in the 1930s) I enjoyed seeing how they began the text of the play with Richard speaking to an audience at an extravagant ball, then following him into a restroom where we watch him urinate. I had originally assumed this entire first speech was a soliloquy spoken directly to the audience but after watching this scene I saw how the beginning of the speech works as a monologue as well. When Richard is no longer speaking to a room full of people we hear his more private and self conscious thoughts. The Duke describes himself as:

Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,

Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

Into this breathing world scarce half made up--

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them (19-23).

McKellan embodies this description well. He has a lame arm hanging by his side and walks with a limp. Richard is clearly self conscious and self loathing, to go as far as to say dogs bark at him when he walks by because he is so ugly to behold. He explains that “since I cannot prove a lover/ To entertain these fair well-spoken days,/ I am determined to prove a villain/ and hate the idle pleasures of these days” (28-31). He believes that because he is deformed and miserable he has no choice but to play “the villain” and loathe his and everyone else's existence on this earth and plot against them.

Despite his self consciousness about his appearance he still has the audacity to seduce Lady Anne, widow to Prince Edward and daughter in law to King Henry VI, both of whom he personally killed. This is not an easy task and she is not willing to listen to him at first. Almost everything she says is an insult about his appearance, my favorite being “thou lump of foul deformity” (57). After hearing countless insults Richard III is bold enough to suggest that he is “fit” to see Lady Anne in her bedchamber.

I originally thought Iago was Shakespeare's perfect villain, but Richard III has challenged this belief and has thus far exceeded my expectations of what a villain is capable of.