Ordering Disorder in "Richard III"

Abstract

The title of this essay refers to both a dramatic process and a metaphysical phenomenon. On the one hand, it describes the efforts of not only characters but also the theater audience to perceive a reassuring pattern of harmony in the chaotic aftermath of the Wars of the Roses-the historical setting of Richard III. On the other, the title suggests that disorder paradoxically brings forth a new order in the play, that somehow from disorder spring proportion and regularity. In Richard III, Shakespeare gradually drives home this unorthodox truth in spite of the human tendency expressed in the first reading of the above title. Repeatedly characters and (less often) viewers of this early tragedy attempt to translate speeches and historical events so as to confirm a priori ideas of order that remain dramatically unconfirmable. Presented with unassimilable details, the play's audience (if not its characters) begins realizing that the Providence of Shakespeare's God operates by means of the most profound disorder to create the setting for the new government of Henry VII. Even then, however, troubling discords in the celebrated harmony of the Houses of York and Lancaster remind spectators that belief in the possibility of ideal political order is as socially dangerous as it is illusory. A corollary of my thesis involves the grand agon between Richard and God. Rather than ruthless ambition, Richard's motivation for his cruelty arises from his bitter desire to deface, to disorder the beautiful handiwork of the God who has malformed him. Regarded from this perspective, their antagonism becomes a terrific contest in which God finally orders the defacement wrought by his seemingly successful disorderer. In Richard III certain characters' belief that both the historical past and future possess a fearful symmetry cannot be equated with Shakespearean Providence.' Generally this symmetry reflects an eye-for-an-eye justice, with sinners dying often through the ironic fulfillment of one of their own casual oaths or curses. The stylized choric laments of Richard III graphically condense the pattern of retribution.2 Margaret's tremendous summary of the carnage wrought by the Wars of the Roses illustrates this imagined symmetry: