Richard Iii

How does Shakespeare present emotional voices in Richard III? Focusing on Act 1 scene 2

Shakespeare’s play King Richard III is full of emotional voices which convey the drama and menace seen throughout the story, as the wily Duke of Gloucester murders and manipulates his way initially to the crown, but ultimately to defeat.

As Act 1 scene ii opens, we see Lady Anne mourning the death of her father-in-law, the Lancastrian King Henry VI, as well as her husband, Prince Edward. This immediately sets the scene up to be an emotive one, as she is grieving for two of her family, and is anguished at their untimely deaths. When Anne utters the words: ‘Whilst I awhile obsequiously lament the untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster’, she is claiming to be doing her duty as a grieving daughter-in-law; obsequiously suggests this, however untimely and virtuous are strong choices of words, indicating that Anne feels passionately that the King died well before his time and that the circumstances surrounding his death are also a cause for lamenting.

‘Poor key-cold figure ‘and ‘Pale ashes’ are both descriptions used by Anne that indicate not only her sorrow at the King’s ‘untimely’ death, but also have a wider significance – ‘ashes’ represent death, but the phrase also reflects the fact that the King’s house and his family’s claim to the throne metaphorically lie in ashes – an extremely emotive statement – whilst ‘key-cold’ links to a medicinal practice at the time to use cold metal to staunch bleeding – a clear reference to the amount of blood the King has lost from his wounds.

‘…the lamentations of poor Anne…’ shows her referring to herself in the third person, thus indicating an unsound mind but also showing a detachment borne of high emotion, whilst the very fact that she is addressing the dead King’s corpse shows how emotional she is feeling: ‘Be it lawful that I invocate thy ghost’ – the superstitions of the age are reflected here, as is Anne’s desperation for the King to...