Hate

Psychological Hate          

Many of Shakespeare’s villains, from the plays that our class has read, are just plain bitter about the lack of opportunity in their lives. Iago and his want to destroy Othello because of the stall in his upward mobility over Cassio, and the suspicion of a cheating wife. Don John’s jealousy over his brother and the praise and recognition that he gets because Don Pedro is a legitimate heir; all points towards the notion that the lack of recognition and upward mobility causes a rage so powerful that these characters try to ruin lives. But in Shakespeare’s play, The Tragedy of King Richard the III, the villain, Richard Duke of Gloucester, is not bitter about the lack of mobility or recognition; instead he is bitter towards love and physical disability. This is one of the first villains in which we have encountered that is not bitter about the lack of status and prestige, but the lack of having a lover and most importantly a suitable appearance. Richard is bitter of being deformed and because of this deformity deems himself, “unlovable.” The quote,

                “Why, I, in this weak piping time of peace,

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to spy my shadow in the sun

And descant on mine own deformity:

And therefore, 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.”

 (Shakespeare 1.1.1)

exemplifies his reason for being a villain is part of his nature due to the fact that he is not physically aesthetic. But another insight that this passage from his soliloquy also exposes is a psychological look more into the character.

Compared to the other villains such as Iago and Don John, who both exhibit some part of their inner psychological reasoning for hating Othello or Don Pedro, Richard is a full blown-psychological induced hate towards people that have deemed him unlovable, but more importantly a hate towards himself because of the lack of opportunity to obtain that love. Furthermore we see a lot of hate directed towards Richard and his deformity through other characters, unlike Iago and Don John. Richard has to work harder to seduce and make people believe him due to his deformity. The quote from Lady Anne,

“Foul devil, for God's sake, hence, and trouble us not;

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,

Fill'd it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,

Behold this pattern of thy butcheries.

O, gentlemen, see, see! dead Henry's wounds

Open their congeal'd mouths and bleed afresh!

Blush, Blush, thou lump of foul deformity;”

                                                                                (Shakespeare 1.1.3)

demonstrates a deeper hate and disgust towards Richard, who through the psychological damage from other characters, has developed this deep reason of being a villain. He is similar to the character to Frankenstein. Both characters have a deformity because they were, “born” with deformities, and both being shunned by society and given the mind-set that because they are ugly they cannot be loved, decided that they are to be villains instead because of the lack of love. Richard, unlike all of the villains, has a richer and more plausible reason towards hating individuals and the want to ruin their lives, because without love for yourself and from others, what other choice does one have, but to hate and plot the demise of the ones that had hurt you the most.