The Villain In Shakespeare's Richard III

Lines 30-41 of Richard III portray Richard of Gloucester creating a treacherous character because of his feelings of alienation. Richard wants to join in on the fun, to do everything that everyone else gets to do to celebrate the end of the war but because of his disability he is rendered unable to do so. Richard then decides to oppose everything he once wanted to partake in and decides that the perfect way to do that is to become a villain and take power away from others. This persona he decides to take on is his way of coping with being an outsider in his own family. Richard spends a great deal of time in his opening monologue convincing himself to play the character of the “villain” that he’s created out of spite for his abusive family members. A brutal civil war between the Plantagenet’s has just …show more content…
He wants his thought to “dive down into [his] soul,” so that he doesn't have a chance to change his mind. This is the last second for him to be able to decide whether to be evil or not, so he forces himself to become the villain quickly so as to stifle feelings of guilt. Now it sounds like the entire time he was speaking, he was trying to convince himself to go through with playing the part of the villain. As he’s being interrupted, he’s reminding himself not to let the appearance of his brother keep him from embracing the villain. After years of abuse and alienation, Richard finally gives up and decides to be a villain. Richard is often seen as inherently evil, but this first paragraph may call that into question. It sounds as though he’s simply fed up with his circumstances and has convinced himself to play the villain, as all of the succeeding actions of his in the play are just byproducts this self-inflicted treachery. We see this guilt and fear over what he’s become clearly as the end of the play, realizing that he was forcing himself to be