Alex Thorn

English 310

Mr. John Gould

 

RETURN TO THE ATDC WRITINGS SECTION
©2003 AlexThorn.com and the Trustees of Phillips Academy

 

 

Buckingham and I
The Accomplices

 

            Because Richard, by his own admission, is “deformed, unfinished, sent before [his] time,” (Act I, Scene I, Line 20) Shakespeare has the task of creating in this repellent human being someone for whom the audience has sympathy. As the audience becomes sympathetic to Richard – because of his intellect, success, determination, and utter giddy enjoyment of his bad behavior – we start to feel like one of Richard’s accomplices, just like Buckingham. Buckingham’s ambitions and behaviors are easier to understand than Richards and, therefore, the audience identifies well with Buckingham. And, because Buckingham is Richard’s right-hand-man, our identification with him actually brings us closer to Richard.[1] Shakespeare uses the character of Buckingham to legitimize the audience’s perception of Richard as a hero almost as an objective correlative – our view of Richard’s heroism follows Buckingham’s standing and falling out with Richard. It is not just that Buckingham is allied with Richard that brings us closer to Richard, but more so that Richard is allied with Buckingham that actually keeps Richard human. Richard’s relationship with Buckingham is what makes Richard heroic – Richard commands the audience’s sympathy for his human qualities and has our amazement for his devilishly superhuman ability to deceive.

            As Richard ascends to the throne, and later when he tries to hold it, he deceives, manipulates and kills; all of which prove his evil nature. At the same time, however, he is clearly smarter than all the other characters. Richard’s complete command over the fellow characters is most evident in his deception of Hastings.

Can lesser hide his love or hate than he;

For by his face straight shall you know his heart.

(Act III, Scene IV, Lines 52-53)

 

As this sentence from Hastings shows, Richard is constantly deceiving those around him. His unparalleled ability to deceive the other characters in the play achieves for Richard superhuman status. In fact, it is not only his success that the audience enjoys, but also the giddy fashion in which he gloats in soliloquy after soliloquy. It is Richard’s supreme charm, persuasiveness, cleverness, deceit and success that earn him the audience’s sympathy.

 

The audience doesn’t truly become sympathetic to Richard until King Edward dies and it becomes apparent that his plans may actually work. In fact, it is at that same time, when Edward dies, that Buckingham emerges as one of Richard’s allies. As the play progresses, Buckingham becomes closer and closer to Richard, just as the audience likes Richard more and more. Richard confides in both Buckingham in private and the audience in each of his soliloquies, likening the audience to Buckingham as his fellow accomplices. However, because the audience not only admires Richard for his keen intellect and incredible ability to deceive but also relates to Buckingham as a fellow accomplice of Richard, an incredible amount of sympathy and sense of Richard as a hero is lost when Richard forsakes Buckingham. Essentially, when Richard rejects Buckingham without consideration, the audience feels like we have been discarded and, essentially, no longer sympathizes with Richard.

Even though Richard is a master of devilry and deceit, the audience loves him; throughout the novel, the audience actually sees Richard as heroic. A hero must have the audience’s sympathy as human as well as the audience’s amazement as superhuman. And, while Richard’s superhuman qualities are evident in his deception, charm and persistence, it is his human qualities that earn him our sympathy. Inherently, it is difficult to give sympathy to someone whom the audience cannot relate and even more difficult sympathizing with someone evil with whom we can’t relate. So, having Buckingham, a fairly normal, not-evil man, as an ally of Richard makes the audience more comfortable sympathizing with such a terrible man as Richard. Buckingham is, essentially, in the same situation that the audience is, in regards to Richard, we relate to Buckingham. Not only is the audience, as normal people, disgusted by Richard’s request for the princes to be murdered, but we are even more upset with the way Richard ignores and forsakes his friend, Buckingham. In fact, as Buckingham is forsaken, the audience feels forsaken, for we relate more with Buckingham than we do with Richard. It is at that point, when Richard orders the assassination of the princes and forsakes Buckingham, that the audience’s sense of Richard as a hero and sympathy for him are lost. Until then, despite Richard’s intrinsic evilness, the audience sees him as the hero of the story: he who achieves what he sets out to do by being superhuman – more charming, more clever, more deceitful than all the other characters.

 


[1] In fact, because Richard III was/is performed in theaters, Shakespeare’s audience truly needs Buckingham to allow them to see the good qualities in Richard; keep in mind that the audience would actually be looking at Richard, therefore would need much more of a push to get over his deformities, evilness, etc, which is why Buckingham’s character is so necessary.