Shakespeare has a reoccurring habit of giving each of his main characters (in his tragedy plays) a tragic flaw. This flaw that he attributes to them is almost always inevitably their undoing in the end. What I have noticed whilst reading The Tragedy of King Richard II is that his tragic flaw seems to be that he is horribly spoiled.
The character of King Richard II came to the throne as a very young child, and so he was constantly surrounded by advisers who ran the country because he could not, and multiple servants who were at his constant beck and call. This is not a suitable environment for a child to grow up in. The circumstances are not his fault, but the fault of the society and situation that he was born into.
Richard was born sometime around 1367 and he was the son of Edward the Black Prince. When Edward III died, Richard became king, at the early age of ten. Because of his young age, the regents ruled the country. As a result of this type of upbringing, it seems he is incapable of making a set decision about anything and is definitely not comfortable with being criticized or being said no to.
Right from the beginning we see and example of how King Richard II is completely incapable of making a decision. In Act One, he is asked to mediate an intense dispute between two noblemen. One is his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke the Duke of Herford and the other is Thomas Mowbray. The two men argue heatedly, until finally the argument grows so heated that they challenge each other to a duel, in the traditional chivalric fashion.
In Act One Scene III the two battling noblemen Mowbray and Bolingbroke are both set to battle it out for their honor. King Richard goes through all the steps of beginning the traditional battle. He questions each of the men and has them restate their grievances. Each man makes an emotionally heightened speech praising themselves and insulting the other, and then suddenly King Richard decides he doesn’t feel like sitting through a fight and calls it off. Here is where I viewed the King as a young spoiled child who wanted to change the channel. At first he was amused by his nobles fighting, but suddenly he got bored and wanted it to be over and done with already. This sudden change in his course of action also shows him as indecisive and unable to make a set decision and stick with it.
3 comments:
This is a good point you bring up and i do agree that Richard II's big flaw is how spoiled he is. I'd also say though that, the fact he is really meek lends towards his flaws.
I would actually say his meekness is MORE of a flaw than how spoiled he is. Yes, being spoiled is a major flaw, by having others decide for him. But I think this can be attributed to his meekness. He is so weak, he doesn't know what to do, so he basically lets others rule for him.
I think that being the King, whoever it is whether it be Richard II or not, will always be spoiled. I think it is so much so that we can't attribute it as a flaw so much as it is just a fact in the life of the King. I don't think that he is bored with situations so much as he is indecisive. He is incapable of sticking with a decision because he let's his emotions get in the way of what he laws are supposed to be.
well, I think that Richard's actions do follow those of a spoiled child. He already has everything he could ever need at his fingertips, but the tendency is to get more. This interpretation definitely show a side of humans that is inevitable, and the majority of the issues in this play still happen today.
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