A Study of the Dramatic Roles of Women in Richard III Essays -- five f

There are five womanish characters in the play Richard III. Of these five there are four central female characters the Duchess of York, Richards mother Anne who later becomes Richards wife Queen Margaret who was the former queen and Richards arch enemy and Queen Elizabeth, the current queen. The final female character who plays a small fiber in the play is Queen Elizabeths daughter, Elizabeth, but she is merely a pawn in Richards plan and we never meet her. Each woman has a significant role in Richard III and is vital to the script. Anne is the first female character that we meet in the text (act 1 scene 2), which is where she is wooed by the net villain in the play, Richard. Anne has just lost her husband and is wallowing in self-pity when Richard appears. Anne is a vulnerable and weak character throughout the play al molar concentrationgh she appears bold and vengeful at the beginning of this scene, trying to disarm Richard with words, Dost gran t me, hedgehog? Then God grant me too/Thou mayst be damned for that wicked deed Anne is misidentify and emotionally unstable which makes her more susceptible to Richards charms. Annes dramatic role in the play is to reveal Richards power to charm and manipulate which he does exceptionally. Although the audience cognize of his true intentions and that he does not plan to keep her long we are glad that he has succeeded because he is the typical villain that we love to hate, although Anne must be corrupt to go for to him and his charms. He admits that he killed her husband and her father-in-law Nay, do not pause for I did kill King Henry/But twas thy beauty that provoked me/twas I ... ...use they waste all been victims of King Richard and finally realise that they have to support each other because they have no-one else. Queen Elizabeth asks Queen Margaret for instructions in cursing O thou well skilled in curses, stay a while/And teach me how to curse mine enemies which I believe is her way of saying sorry and treating her as an equal. The women in this play are vital to the script and although they have no power whatsoever in this play, without them neither would Richard. Part of each of the female characters role was to show that in their era it was the men that held the power and the women were entirely powerless which Shakespeare presented superbly.Works CitedShakespeare, William. Richard III. The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. (New York W.W. Norton and Company, 1997), 515-600.