How does Shakespeare establish the character of Richard in the first two scenes’ of Richard the III?

« combined with the skill he has demonstrated in the scene, the audience knows he will achieve his diabolic plans.

The question is how. In the next scene, Richard’s ability of being one step in front of people is confirmed.

The obstacle he has the overcome in this scene, Anne’s hatred, seems to be hopeless and unachievable.

Shakespeare portrays Anne’s animosity towards Richard with the help of actions “she spits at him”, “she looks scornfully at her” but also castigates him as an inhuman, unnatural and devilish butcher.

Right in the middle of all this, Richard proposes Anne to take revenge but she cannot do it.

This demonstrates Richard cunning and power of his words.

He always has an answer and an excuse and flatters her mutable times.

Richard takes back control of the conversation, with a well-crafted speech.

Richard shows his power of manipulation with words as at the beginning of the scene she was vividly cursing Richard and praying for his death “If ever he have wife, let her be made more miserable by the death of him” and now Richard is handing her the opportunity to kill him which Anne declines. In the final soliloquy, Richard goes back to the playful and dismissive tone we got to know when he was alone in Act 1 Scene 1.

Richard uses to rhetorical questions do draw the audience in.

This demonstrates to us that Richard is trying to maintain a strong relationship with the audience, an interesting technique of Shakespeare.

A parallel can be found between both opening scenes, beginning and ending with soliloquys.

This shows the importance Shakespeare allocates to these speeches, for a more enjoyable and original play.

The fact that Richard produces these soliloquys could also help portray the image of a villain as explaining your future doings is one of the main traits of a villain.

Here we are forced to agree with Richard that it was a real achievement wining Anne’s heart showing that he evens manipulates the relationship he has between the audience and himself.

The last lines of this scenes recall the reference to his shadow from the first scene, showing how focused he is on himself.

He does not waste any words on Anne, even though it was a real grind to win her over.

Instead he tells simply and brutally that he “will not keep her long”.

This shows us that this whole scene was effortless for Richard so he is extremely skilled with words and that he already future plans ahead after Anne. We can conclude, with the help of these two opening scenes that Shakespeare portrays Richard as a manipulating, by the power of his words, and evil character.

Richard creates a strong relationship with the audience, with the help of the soliloquy, creating an intriguing character for the audience, as the question is never is his plans going to work out but rather how is he going to achieve them.. »