Richard III - Margaret Quotes

Question 1

Isolated

Answer 1

Asides
- 1.3 ‘Thou killst my husband / and Edward, my poor son’, reminder of R’s acting, sees clearly, less naive, audience likes her
- 4.4 ‘right for right / Hath dimmed your infant morn to aged night’, restoring balance, unnatural timing of death - unsympathetic, alienated from audience

Theatrical imagery
- ‘direful pageant’, as audience watching events unfold
- ‘to watch the waning of mine enemies’ delight in weakness of enemies (enjoys watching downfall)

But M and women achieve unity via suffering and united by wheel of fortune

Question 2

Fixated on revenge

Answer 2

Theatrical imagery
- ‘to watch the waning of mine enemies’

Asides
- ‘Plantagenet doth quit Plantagenet; Edward for Edward pays a dying debt’, idea of balance, callous when juxtaposed with loss, eye for eye, DJ

• ‘I am hungry for revenge’, appetite for revenge
• ‘vain flourish of my fortune’, worse version of Margaret, insulting E

Question 3

M seeming unsympathetic or cruel

Answer 3

• metaphor of the Duchess’s womb as a kennel for a predatory dog
• ‘the kennel of thy womb hath crept a hellhound that doth hunt us all to death’
• delight that R is ‘preying’ on own family and they share her suffering
• ‘this carnal cur preys on the issue of his mother’s body and makes her few-fellow with others’ moan’
• duchess’ words used to emp M’s callous behaviour
• ‘triumph not in my woes! / God witness me, I have wept for thine’
• delight in losses of enemies
• ‘Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?’
• antitheses comparing E’s past status with her current losses
• ‘For a happy wife, a most distressed widow;/ For joyful mother, one that wails the name;/ For a queen, a very caitiff crowned with care;’

Question 4

Emp the turning of the wheel of fortune

Answer 4

• ‘thus hath the course of justice whirled about / And left thee but a prey to time / Having no more but a thought of what thou wast / to torture thee the more, being what thou art
• ‘thy Edward he is dead, that killed my Edward, / Thy other Edward dead, to quit my Edward’, idea of restoring balance
• theatrical imagery suggesting horror to come ‘will to France, hoping the consequence / Will prove as bitter, black and tragical’
• antitheses comparing E’s past status to current losses
• ‘For she that scorned at me, now scorned of me; / For she being feared of all, now fearing one; / For she commanding all, obeyed of none’
• comparison of her own state and E’s
• ‘thou didn’t usurp my place, and dost thou not / Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow? / Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke, / from which I slip my wearied neck / and leave the burden of it all on thee’

Question 5

M’s curses

Answer 5

• 1.3 - source of power?
• source of unity between E and M
• ‘stay awhile / And teach me how to curse mine enemies’
• series of imperatives telling E:
• endure physical hardship ‘forbear to sleep the nights, and fast the day’
• dwell on suffering and loss ‘bettering dead happiness with living woe’
• exaggerate the goodness of those who have died and those who have been lost ‘think that thy babes were sweeter than they were, / and he that slew them fouler than he is’
• metaphor suggesting that it is the suffering that gives the women’s words more power ‘thy woes will make them sharp and pierce like mine’
• E’s suggestion that words have limited power ‘windy attorneys to their clients’ woes, / airy succeeders of intestate joys, / poor breathing orators of miseries, / let them have scope, though what they will impart / help nothing else, yet they ease the heart’