The Role Of Manipulation In Shakespeare's Richard III

Richard III is a play by William Shakespeare, that tells the story of the ill minded King Richard whose lust for power ultimately led to his unfortunate demise. Richard III seems to be very self conscious and depressed about his deformities. Richard is willing to commit murder and treachery without a second thought. He is a skilled manipulator and can convince almost anyone to do his will.

Richard III seems to be very self conscious and ashamed about his deformity, and feels that he is being punished by society for it. Nevertheless, behind his pessimistic face he has malicious intentions, and he uses his physical deformities as a tool to get his way. At the beginning of the play, Shakespeare describes Richard as “deformed, unfinished, sent
“They do me wrong and I will not endure it. Who are they that complains unto the King that I forsooth, am stern and love them not” (I.III.41-43) Richard says this because he wants everybody to think there is somebody that complains to the King that he does not think well of him. Doing this it plants a seed of deceit and allows him to use that against them. It would also plant the idea that somebody does not like Richard and wants him out of the picture. When faced with a challenge he relies on his manipulation and if that fails he usually tries to make an excuse and get
His lack of remorse, vanity and arrogance would seem to be the answer to how he does these tasks with ease. A hunger for power is when you long for a power so great, you would do anything to get it, in Richard’s case he murders and lies. He never consults his conscience when making a decision, and this led to his death. When going into battle Richard is visited by the ghosts of the people he killed, they put final curses on him. Some believe these curses are what led him to die in battle. His hunger for power lasted to the very end. He had zero remorse for those he killed, until they came back to haunt him, when he was about to die he claimed that he was sorry and that he didn’t mean to kill all those people. This scene is of a similar one to a short story A Good Man Is Hard to Find, there is a quote which says “She would’ve been a good woman, if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life” this can relate to Richard because if there had been somebody with a sword to his neck his entire life he would have no doubt been a better man and would’ve made better