Identity

Identity

1. Women as contingent on men for identity

   • References to them as men's
     • 'poor wife of thy Edward' (1.2)
       • Elizabeth I as under pressure to marry. Parallel
     • 'Richard's royal Queen' (4.1)
     • 'him that raised me to this careful height' (1.3)
     • 'the loss of such a lord includes all harms' (1.3)
       • 'Margaret's aside...pinpoints the confusion that results when women must depend upon men for their identity' (Miner)
   • No causes of their own
     • Even QM acts to avenge a man: 'Edward thy son...for Edward our son' (1.3)
       • 'in an age obsessed with individual conscince, there are no plays about women avowed to great causes' (Dusinberre)
         • Despite the shift to Puritanism/Lutherism, only men get this individualised identity
     • QE's role is to preserve Dorset and Elizabeth: 'get thee gone!' (4.1)
     • 'there to fill the scene' (4.1)

2. Powerful

   • Richard's identity
     • Religious identity
       • The perception of him as the devil gives power: 'devil', 'minister of hell', 'hound', 'cacodaemon' etc
       • His association with saints in 1.3 enables him. So does it in 3.7; religious perception is key - 'a Christian-like conclusion'
         • Possible comment on religious flip-flopping: swings in Tudor religion throughout 16C?
     • Personality
       • His charm and ability to shape language gives him power: 1.2, 4.4, 1.3, 2.1
       • His determination leads him to the crown: 1.1, 3.7
         • Hazlitt: 'not a man striving to be great, but to be greater'
   • Women's identity/gender identity
     • Power to curse
       • The fact that the curses come true: 'now Margaret's curse if fall'n upon our heads' (3,3)
         • De Beauvoire and Millett: language as power. The fact it comes true is significant
       • 'thy woes will make them sharp' and 'miseries have crazed my voice' (4.4)
         • Female suffering for power within Shakespeare: Ophelia's power to affect Hamlet comes through death.
         • 1988 Penny Downie (played Margaret) says she can be seen as an “ageless figure” who has “been purified by suffering to play this final moral role”
     • Moral, choric role
       • 'stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me'
       • 'in the breath of bitter words let's smother my damned son' (4.4)
         • Choric role typically given to weak characters/ suffering: Euripides' Trojan Women or the semi-influential fool in Lear

3. Constraining/painful

   • Women's identity
     • 'relent? no...'tis womanish' (1.4)
     • Objectification and dismissal
       • 'cherry lip...passing pleasing tongue' (1.1)
       • 'painted queen' (1.3)
       • 'I will drown your exclamations' (4.4)
   • Richard's identity
     • Maternal rejection
       • 'That is the butt end of a mother's blessing' (2.2)
         • 'the happiness of being beloved is denied to him; what then remains to him but the happiness of ruling?' (Schlegel)
       • ''the most wretchedst thing' & 'accursed womb, the bed of death!'
         • 'the few mothers who do appear...are anything but motherly' (Greer)
     • Deformity
       • 'bunchback'd toad'...'sent before my time'...'cheated by dissembling nature'
       • 'I must be held a rancorous enemy'
   • The Lords
     • Forced into battle/to pick a side

4. Superficial

   • Only titles give power
     • 'crown his warlike brows with paper' (1.3)
       • Comment on superficiality of titles/court power in the face of squabbling Elizabethan court: Essex and Leicester in particuler
     • 'a little joy enjoys the queen...for I am she' (QM, 1.3)
     • 'wedges of godl, great anchors' and 'between their titles and low name, there's nothing differs but the outward fame' (1.4)
     • 'golden flame of sovereignty' (4.4)
   • Only false readings give power
     • 'mortal eyes cannot endure the devil' against 'when most I play the devil'
     • 'it is determin'd' and the idea that Richard's power is immense