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Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal – Vol.7, No.7

Publication Date: July 25, 2020

DOI:10.14738/assrj.77.8526.

Whissell, C. (2020). Shakespeare’s Richard III: An Anomalous Protagonist in an Unusual Play. Advances in Social Sciences Research

Journal, 7(7) 199-207.

Shakespeare’s Richard III: An Anomalous Protagonist in an Unusual

Play

Cynthia Whissell

Laurentian University

ABSTRACT

Shakespeare’s Richard III is studied in terms of the positivity of language

in Richard’s speeches (close to 8000 emotionally scored words).

Positivity is evaluated with the Dictionary of Affect in Language

(Whissell, 2009). A plot line modeled with a polynomial regression is

sketched for the entire drama on the basis of positivity. The overall

emotion of the play is positive, and essentially comic (in comparison to

Shakespeare’s oeuvre) but the trajectory of the plot of Richard III is

tragic. Richard appears as a psychopath in most of the play but becomes

more neurotic and conscience-stricken towards the end. The two

discussions where Richard is attempting to force a marriage (with Anne,

with Queen Elizabeth’s daughter) are compared and differentiated.

INTRODUCTION

This article considers the words spoken by the character of Richard III in Shakespeare’s play of the

same name in order to address some of the questions concerning them both. The variable at the

heart of the research is the positivity or negativity of Richard’s words. Table 1 includes examples of

some positive and negative words spoken by King Richard.

Shakespeare wrote The Tragedy of King Richard the Third, one of his more popular plays, early in

his career (1592-93). It is one of his longest dramas and its protagonist speaks over 1000 lines of

dialogue (Dunton-Downer & Riding, 2004, p. 79). The play has been around, in one form or another,

for four centuries, and analysts have posed several questions about it, finding it to be something of

an outlier within the Shakespearean oeuvre. They question the reasons for audiences’ positive

reactions to the play and to its protagonist (e.g., Hearns, 2011; Slotkin, 2007). They also attempt to

identify the appropriate psychological diagnosis for the character. Is Shakespeare’s Richard a

psychopath? Could he be neurotic, or perhaps regressed (Clay, 2013; Freud, 1916; Hearns, 2011)?

Classification of this drama as a tragedy (as opposed to a history) has also been debated (Lemon,

2018, p. 40). The play is obviously one of the series that tells the history of the English monarchy,

but on its first page, in the First Folio, it bears the title of “tragedy”. Most experts have noted the pro- Tudor bias of the work (Leas, 1971; Lemon, 2018; pp. 1-12). This bias seems to mandate a very

negative view of Richard, which is inconsistent with audience reactions.

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URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.14738/assrj.77.8526 200

Whissell, C. (2020). Shakespeare’s Richard III: An Anomalous Protagonist in an Unusual Play. Advances in Social Sciences Research Journal, 7(7) 199-207.

Table 1: Top 20 extremely positive or negative words (Words in either column lie at least two

standard deviations distant from the mean for positivity in everyday English) employed repeatedly

by Richard III in his speeches, arranged in order from most to least frequent.

Analyses in this research inspect when and how Richard III employs positive and negative words in

his speeches. The plot of the play is inferred from these usages. In everyday language, the questions

addressed by the research are the following:

“What does the plot of this drama look like?” “Why is a character who is a self-described

villain – and furthermore not a Tudor progenitor - so popular?” “Is Richard III a tragedy

or a history?” and “Is Richard unremittingly and guiltlessly villainous (i.e., is he

psychopathic)?”

The plot of Richard III is determined by modeling the changes in Richard’s language over time with

a polynomial regression. The best-fit line for this regression reveals at what points in the play the

character’s language tends to become more or less positive. Richard’s status as a villain is evaluated

in terms of the positivity of his words in comparison to everyday English, and in comparison to

words spoken by the remaining characters. A villain should employ the more negative words in both

comparisons. In order for the play to satisfy the criteria of a tragedy discussed by Aristotle in his

Poetics, the positivity in the protagonist’s speeches should go through several phases. It should rise

somewhat, until it reaches a high point (establishment phase), and then change direction and fall

(reversal) to the point where the candidate becomes aware of his faults (recognition). Finally, if

Shakespeare is presenting Richard to the audience as a psychopath, the character’s positivity should

Very Positive Very Negative

Good Not

Well Cannot

Myself Kill

Love Against

Soul Doubt

Us Fear

Fair Poor

Heart Farewell

Like Tears

Mother Fearful

Friends Lie

Grace Angry

Husband Knows

Sweet Murder

Marry Off

Great Buried

Heaven Grew

Son Less

Wife Nothing

Happy Stern