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a woman who, for very good reasons, hates him, and seduce her. In the words of Auden,

even when [he has] something tangible to gain, this is a secondary satisfaction; [his] primary satisfaction is the infliction of suffering on others, or the exercise of power over others against their will. Richard does not really desire Anne; what he enjoys is successfully wooing a lady whose husband and father-in-law he has killed (248).

Once Richard has won Anne and she no longer presents him with a challenge and opposition, he has no more use for her. He does not desire her heart or her love because he loves her or because he wants her; he pursues her because of the challenge she presents and the conflict that he has already created between himself and Anne by killing her family. His pleasure in his relationship with her is the definition and identity he finds in pushing against her in their verbal battle and in the conquering of her will and her hate. After this tension is released when she submits to his wishes, she no longer provides him with a source of identity and definition, and so he has her killed moves on to other pursuits to satisfy this insatiable need. Anne is only useful and attractive to him as long as she provides him with a way to define himself against her. Without this, Richard's character begins to fade away and his identity begins to dissolve.

After Richard conquers each of his enemies and is crowned king, he begins to decline as a character. The primary characteristics of his character are his ability to manipulate people and his merciless pursuit of vengeance and power. When he achieves the power and vengeance he desires by taking the crown, his ability to manipulate people declines, as we see in his conversation with Elizabeth. He attempts a very similar manipulation to the one that worked so nicely with Anne, but this time it doesn't work. Richard's identity in this play is tied to his ability to manipulate others, and this scene is an illustration of the decline of his identity, as we see that he cannot control Elizabeth as he was able to do with Anne.

Richard's character is inextricable from the pressure formed by the opposition between himself and the other characters. As Auden asserts, Richard is a parasitic character, defined only against other characters and institutions. When his "host" is destroyed, he too must die. Richard diminishes after he has destroyed everyone he initially set out to tear down.

Works Cited

Auden, W. H. The Dyer's Hand. New York: Random House, 1962.

Shakespeare, William. The Life and Death of King Richard III.

Learn more about this author, Anna Grootveld.
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