Diction In Richard III

As just young children, we are almost immediately taught about the power of our words. Parents constantly lecture children on the consequences of what they say, emphasizing how powerful just one word can be to someone. Often, we are taught this with bullying. A common saying we learned as children is “If you don’t have nothing to say, don’t say it at all.” Throughout Shakespeare’s epic, Richard III, there is a clear theme showing the power of word choice. Richard uses words to gain power, woo Lady Anne, motivate his army, and to trick Hastings in putting himself to death. Throughout Richard III, Shakespeare shows the power of diction in getting what one wants. The first evidence of the power of diction is evident when Richard wins over Lady
Anne. In lines 150 through 169 of Act I Scene II, Richard speaks a powerful monologue that results in Lady Anne falling in love with him. Richard speaks beautifully in this monologue, using smoothing words. Towards the end of the speech, Richard offers Lady Anne the chance to kill him. He ends the speech with “Take up the sword again, or take up me.” (574) Lady Anne responds with the words, “Arise, dissembler. Though I wish they death, I will not be an executioner.” (574). This quote shows the complete 180 of Lady Anne’s feelings following the sweet words spoken by Richard. Lady Anne was a victim to Richard’s actions. He killed both her husband and her father. This caused Lady Anne to originally look at Richard with utter disgust. However, following Richard’s speech, she fell in love with him even after he had dismantled her family. This scene portrays the power of diction with Richard causing Lady Anne to fall in love with him even after he had killed members of his family. Richard desired Lady Anne and was able to use words to win her over and get what he wanted.

Richard uses cunning word choice to get Hastings killed after he betrayed him. In Act III Scene IV, there is a dialogue between Richard and Hastings while the coronation of Edward is being discussed. Richard enters the room knowing that Hastings had planned to betray him due to intel he had received from Buckingham through Catesby. Richard presents this question to Hastings, “I pray you all, what do they deserve that do conspire my death with devilish plots.” Hastings, unknowing of that Richard knew of his heart, responded with “I say, my Lord, they have deserved death.” With these cunning words, Richard tricked Hastings into his own death. Hastings was later put to death. By asking Hastings the question, Richard cunningly used words to get what he wanted, the death of Hastings. Again, the power of diction is evident in Richard getting exactly what he wants. In the final act, Richard uses words to motivate his soldiers and get them to do what he wants. By this point in the epic, Richard is all but physically defeated. He spent the whole night prior to the battle with little sleep, waking to horrible dreams of defeat. The main points of Richard’s speech revolve around making fun of the enemy, calling them a “sort of vagabonds, rascals, and runaways, a scum of Bretons and base lackey peasants.” Through this speech, Richard successfully rallies his troops and gets them to fight for him. However, this battle does not go Richard’s way as he is slain. Although, this battle is not won, Richard was able to deliver a powerful speech that inspired his army to fight until his death, even though they were aware of what he had to rise to power. Would you be able to fight for a ruler who had made his way to throne through a succession of murders of innocent people? The answer is most likely not. However, through powerful words, King Richard is able to get his soldiers to fight against King Richmond and protect him as King of their nation.

Richard uses deceitful words to gain the trust of his brother Clarence, which eventually leads to the death of Clarence; exactly what Richard wanted.
In Act I Scene I, Richard’s brother Clarence is sent to the tower, the prison, by King Henry. Richard meets him in the tower and talks with him about his imprisonment, blaming it all on the King’s wife. In reality, Richard was indirectly responsible for the imprisonment of Clarence by starting rumors. Richard wanted Clarence in prison because he was in the way of Richard’s way to the throne. However, it does not end with Clarence’s imprisonment. Instead, Richard blames everything on the queen and promises to free Clarence. Thus gaining Clarence’s trust. While Clarence is in prison, he has a terrible dream foreshadowing his death. Following the dream, two murderers come to Clarence on Richard’s behalf. However, Clarence refuses to believe that Richard would do such thing because they were brothers and Richard had sworn his loyalty to him. After some debate, the murderers kill Clarence. It is evident in this scene that Richard used words to gain Clarence’s trust, but then broke it, resulting in his death. Clarence’s death was exactly what Richard wanted as he was in his way to the
throne. Richard uses words to deceive the population about the death of Clarence. In Act II Scene II, King Edward finds about the death of Clarence, whom he had imprisoned due to rumors started by Richard. King Edward did not know that Richard had ordered the murder of his brother Clarence and was completely unaware of his death. Richard immediately takes advantage of this by saying, “Marked you not the guilty kindred of the Queen/ Looked pale when they did hear of Clarence’s death?” With this quote, Richard is trying to avoid taking the blame for the death of his brother Clarence. By using this clever diction and blaming it on the royalty, it places Richard in a better light. Here, avoiding blame for Clarence’s death is exactly what Richard wanted, and through cunning words, he was able to deceive others that it was not him that had Clarence killed.