Richard III and Anne

This play has a lot going on in this first act. It is a little difficult to keep straight, but there is quite a bit of it that I recognize from other plays that we have read. One of the first things that I wanted to point out was the magic/curse/spell reference. We saw this in our last play Othello and in A Midsummer Nights Dream. I also noticed that this play has a villain that we are going to get to know quite well, much like we get to know Iago well in Othello. The one difference about this play however is that the title is Richard III so we are going to get to know a villain better than we are the hero, as we do in the other plays we have read.

I want to take a closer look at this villain and particularly his wooing and relationship with Anne. At the end of 1.1, we see Richard saying that he is going to woo over Anne but not because he loves her but rather because of what he will get out of it, “The which will I, not all so much for love as for another secret close intent by marrying her which I must reach unto” 1.1.158-160. Richard has killed Anne’s father and husband, but he says, “What though I killed her husband and her father?” 1.1.155. He really does not care all that much that he will use a woman in grief to get what he wants, something to benefit from. Right in Act 1 we see our main character as a sick, twisted man (twisted appropriate considering his physical appearance).  

Act 1.2 opens with Anne morning over her father at some sort of ceremony, like a funeral. Richard could care less that he has just killed this man and has the audacity to show up and try and woo this woman. Anne makes reference to a “black magician” who has sent him to the place at that time (1.2.34-35). Anne is so angry that he is there, and he calls her an angry angel, and continuously compliments her beauty. Anne does put up a good verbal fight for quite some time, but at the end of the scene Richard gives her a ring to wear, and she seems to be playing a little hard to get, and seems flirtatious in a way, but wears it anyway. She is not the strongest female character we have seen in our plays thus far that is for sure! This is a great play so far, but I am hoping our class discussion will help “smooth out the wrinkles” in the story!

Iago: Great Villain

Sam Montagna

Professor Mulready

Shakespeare I

15 October 2012

Great Villain

              I would consider Iago one of the greatest Shakespearean villains. He is an evil genius. He's like today's Joker from Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight. Just like the Joker is able to turn Good Guy Harvey Dent into a villain, Iago turns Good Guy Othello into a bad guy. All the Joker or Iago had to do is take away the person Dent and Othello loved and let the grief, anger and sadness come out and wreck havoc. Iago takes all the information he is given and executes his plan perfectly. He has gained everyone's trust and is even called “Honest Iago.” He even knows that his status will be beneficial. “He holds me well:/ the better shall my purpose work on him” (Shakespeare 2134.372-373). It is easy for him to act so two-faced. No one would, and no one does suspect his role in Othello's change. He plays both sides. On Othello's side, he tells Othello “Strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated” (2170.197-198). He adds fuel to the fire on Othello's end but then comforts Desdemona on her end. Iago tells her “I pray you, be content. 'Tis but his humour./ The business of the state does him offence,/ and he does chide with you (2176.169-171).

               The characters in the play are so oblivious to his intentions. Emilia suspects someone is behind it. “I will be hanged if some eternal villain,/ some busy and insinuating rogue,/ some cogging, cozening slave, to get some office/ have not devised this slander” (2175.134-137). This description sounds like the real Iago and Iago recognizes it, and yet, no one actually accuses him. The audience, however, knows everything that is going on. The audience knows Iago's motivation and that Iago's only action is to provide suggestion and let Othello's insecurities do the rest. This is why Shakespeare's use of soliloquy is extremely important in this play. Without it, the audience would be clueless to his plan and Othello would really be a story of a husband that was cheated on. The soliloquy acts as a guide, it keep the audience up to date with Iago's plans and intentions. Iago's soliloquies are also important because he cannot reveal himself to anyone in the play. If he did, then someone could potentially destroy his plan—he cannot afford to trust anyone but himself. After reading Act IV, Iago is still adding fuel and evidence to the fire. It's like watching a train wreck. You want to but you can't look away. Like it was discussed in class, I keep waiting for someone to come in and save the day, but no one is there. There is no Batman in this story. Iago's distrust of anyone prevents any rescuing. Iago's purpose for the soliloquies cement Othello and Desdemona's fate. Their marriage is over before it even began. Iago's success in executing his plan makes Othello the tragedy that it is.

Iago

Iago is the villain in this play. He is jealous of Michael Cassio's position as Othello's lieutenant, which Iago thinks that he deserves the position more. Iago tells Roderigo that he is taking advantage of Othello, that is the one and only reason why he is serving under Othello and is forced to be his flag-bearer instead of his second in command.
     Iago , along with Roderigo shows crafty and devilish ways of coming up with a plan of waking up Brabanzio, and telling him he has been robbed. They tell him that the Moor is sleeping with Brabanzio's daughter Desdemona. Brabanzio thinks they are lying and calls them out as villains.
      Iago likes to cause trouble and "stir the pot" or create drama, in act 1.2 he talks to Othello asking him if he is legitimately married to Desdemona.
      Also when the senator and his men come find him , Iago tries to easily manipulate him and tell him by "advising" him to go turn himself in. Othello responds to that telling Iago that he has a clear conscious, so he has nothing to worry about.
  
      I just don't like Iago's character. I understand why he is jealous  of Cassio and has devilish ways about him, but i just don't like him. I haven't read this play all the way through before , but I hope Iago's character does not turn out worse.

       

The Good and the Bad

For the sake of this post, I am going to focus mainly on the beginning of the first scene of act four, where the viewer sees Shylock preparing to take the pound of flesh from Antonio, despite the fact that Bassanio has double what Antonio owes him for Shylock. It seems that the principle is the thing here for Shylock, and it also makes it appear as if the man wanted to take a pound of flesh from Antonio all along. It makes Shylock out to be the villain, being that he refuses to shake the bond and grant any form of mercy to Antonio despite the fact that he had lost everything before. Graziano says of Shylock after watching him sharpen his blade on his shoe: “Not on thy sole but on thy soul, harsh Jew,/Thou mak’st thy knife keen. But no metal can…/half the keenness/Of thy sharp envy [malice]” 4.1.123-135. The contrast to Shylock’s soul and his malice is interesting, because isn’t the soul what is equated to religion? It is possible that here they are equating his wickedness to the fact that he is a Jew.

Shylock’s wickedness continues as the scene goes on and a disguised Portia enters the scene, pretending to be a judge in attempts to get Antonio free of this bond he is currently caught up in. She speaks to him, trying to convince him to cut the bond, but he does not give in to her reasoning, which is often quite clever indeed. Portia asks whether or not he has a surgeon to stop Antonio’s bleeding, and he says he does not which leads Portia to ask him if he do it for charity, Shylock answers: “I cannot find it. ‘Tis not in the bond.” 4.1.257. This shows Shylock as a person who cares only for the bond and the deals that he makes, rather than focusing on the actual person before him who has lost everything due to his ships sinking.

Meanwhile, Antonio manages to, though Shylock was about to kill him by taking a pound of his flesh, get the fine he would have suffered reduced and get half of it in a trust for Jessica and Lorenzo for after Shylock’s death. This paints out Antonio to be the hero. Shylock must basically get rid of all of his fortune—which the viewer  has seen to be very important to him—due to the fact that the bond has been broken after he was seeking to take Antonio’s life. Antonio, though he was nearly killed moments ago by Shylock before Portia’s reasoning saves him, is the kind and caring man who only wants to help reduce the fine, because that is what he must do, even if there is a bit of a second motive in it being that he helps get half of it secured for his friend who has married Jessica.

Though earlier in this play, Shylock seems to be the victim to Antonio, it appears as if Shakespeare has turned the tables on this sympathy that the viewer might have been gaining for Shylock. In the beginning, Shylock accuses Antonio of calling him a dog and spitting on him, to which Antonio does not deny and in fact states he would do again, and yet now he is reducing a fine on Shylock’s welfare even after Shylock attempted to take his life. Shakespeare seems to really want to kill any feelings the viewer may have garnered for Shylock in order to paint  Antonio as the hero here, and really get the point across that, as discussed in class on Friday, the Christians in this play are the generous ones, that would give up all for another man.

Richard III and Other Miscreants

Learning from the form of our recent tragedies completed in class, I can assume that the turns being thrown by Richard III in Act I are very unlikely to right themselves.

After Richard III double crosses his younger brother, Clarence, by telling rumors to lock him in the tower, I couldn't help but recall Iago when Richard III confides in Clarence, "We say the King is wise and virtuous, and his noble Queen well struck in years, fair and not jealous. We say that Shore's wife hath...a bonny eye, a passing pleasing tongue." (1.1, 90-95) What struck a likeness to Iago for me was the way Richard III was maintaining Clarence's confidence in him while suggesting to Clarence that it may have been King Edward, his wife, or perhaps Lady Shore that is responsible for his imprisonment. Richard III is as two-faced and slippery as Iago, projecting the same type of cringe-worthy artifice that runs through many Shakespearean tragedies.

In comparing Richard III to other antagonists, I must draw attention to the obscurity that surrounds the motives of Shakespeare's villains and what causes them to do as they do. Don John, of 'Much Ado About Nothing', for example, went to great lengths to muddle up the established relationship between Claudio and Hero, chalking up his incorrigible behavior to his insignificance and jealousy of being the bastard brother to Don Pedro. Don John's reasoning of familial resentment hardly seemed consistent with the damage it wrought over Hero's sense of self-worth and reputation and 'Twelfth Night's' Iago takes a vow of silence before relieving the audience with the explanation they yearned for.

These villains, among others, were brought to my mind during Richard III's opening speech which already details why he is so rotten, "I that am rudely stamped and want love's majesty...cheated of feature by dissembling nature, deformed, unfinished, sent before my time...And therefore since I cannot prove a lover...I am determined to prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days." (1.1, 16-31) Richard III chiefly cites his physical deformity and inability to woo as the source of his bitterness and evil ways, yet he also notes a different frustration having to do with Edward, "Instead of mounting barbed steeds...he capers nimbly in a lady's chamber." (1.1, 10-12) Richard III resents his brother, King Edward, for his prowess with women and at the same time is frustrated with his ineffectiveness as a ruler. I both intrigued and filled with dread of reading further in this play and discovering what other awful instances Richard III is going to manifest these inhibitions.