S. V. H. Boyes
“Richard’s attitude towards women is the result of his own insecurities.” Using your
knowledge of the play as a whole, show how far you agree with this view of Richard III.
Remember to support your answer with reference to different interpretations. [15]
Richard’s attitude to women is as much a result of his insecurities as it is of his egotism - a complex
character, Richard’s contempt towards women may be due to them being voices of morality in his
otherwise immoral lifestyle - Queen Margaret, Lady Anne, and Queen Elisabeth’s constant reminders
of his deformity and vulnerability provoke a defensive stance against what he perceives as
‘weaknesses’. However, his rhetorical dexterity often allows him to circumnavigate their jibes, with
the responses of Anne or Elisabeth, for example, allowing his ego to swell in a self-congratulatory
manner - his power over women allows him to regard them with utter disdain for their foolishness.
Anne’s mention of “his timorous dreams” in Act 4 Scene 1 verifies A C Bradley’s response to the
play, in that “[Richard’s] conscience disturbs him.” Richard’s conscience could be argued to be an
insecurity of his in itself, seeing as he cannot escape guilt, thus is haunted by it in Act 5 Scene 3. As
Anne is therefore witness to his most vulnerable moments, this may offer a reason for his dismissive
responses to her once she is wooed - by ignoring her, he is able to ignore her awareness of the
vulnerability that a guilty conscience gives him. Bringing his insecurities to the forefront in this scene,
Anne renders Richard momentarily bare of his remorseless reputation (in front of Elisabeth, the
Duchess of York, and Dorset, too), thus offering a cause for his attitude towards both women:
although they are politically powerless, they are potentially powerful in their knowledge of his true
self.
By contrast, the ease with which Anne is wooed makes Richard appear capable of anything - his
smooth words allow him to persuade a woman, whose father and husband he has killed, to marry
him. Richard’s incredulous response (“Was ever a woman in this humour woo’d / was ever a woman
in this humour won?”) expresses the condescending attitude he has towards women, particularly,
here, for their foolishness and ambition. In Richard Loncraine’s 1995 production, the scene takes
place in a mortuary beside the corpse of Edward, Anne’s husband, rather than Henry’s corpse,
intensifying the mockery that Richard exercises over her. As René Girard writes in his essay, To
Entrap the Wisest: Sacrificial Ambivalence in The Merchant of Venice and Richard III :
“Anne and Elizabeth, the two women who have most suffered at the hands of Richard, cannot resist
the temptation of power... when Richard himself diabolically dangles this toy in front of them.”
This interpretation of the play offers a reason for Richard’s attitude to women, not due to his
insecurities, but due to the amusement he derives from using them as pawns in order to further his
own political power, with hollow promises for furthering theirs. His words ensnare both Anne and
Elisabeth, giving him the confidence that allows him to act disparagingly towards both women
throughout the play, coupled with the established androcentric society that Shakespeare lived in
justifying these actions.
On the other hand, as his mother is under no illusion about his true self and openly detests him (“A
cockatrice… hatched to the world / whose unavoided eye is murderous”) (“Thou camest on earth to
make the earth my hell”), one may argue that it is lack of love and acceptance that are his true
insecurities. Shakespeare’s use of basilisk imagery alludes to Richard’s deformity, which is a source
of shame to the Duchess and Richard, thus his self-loathing in Act 1 Scene 1 (“rudely stamped”,
“deformed, unfinished”). Due to women constantly illuminating these insecurities (Elisabeth: “that
foul bunch-backed toad”, Margaret: “that dog, that had his teeth before his eyes”) and their courage
