Welcome to the blog for Prof. John Talbird's English 102 class. The purpose of this site is two-fold: 1) to continue the conversations we start in class (or to start conversations before we get to class) and 2) to practice our writing/reading on a weekly basis in an informal forum.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Finishing Up Richard III

As we complete the play this week, I have a few questions that I'm interested in exploring:

Look at Act 5, Scene 3 again:

  • On the stage we have both the tents of Richard III and Richmond who is trying to overthrow Richard. In a movie, we would just cut back and forth between these two leaders, but on a stage, we can't do that. How would you stage this scene so that it's not confusing?
  • Richard is visited in this scene by the ghosts of those he's killed. What is the significance of this?
In Act 4, Scene 4, Richard, after killing his wife Anne--whose husband, remember, he kills before the play begins--comes to Elizabeth and asks her to help him wed her daughter who, remember, is his niece, thus making this an act of incest. Also, just before this he killed Elizabeth's two adolescent sons (early in the play he's killed her brother). Nishal brought up an interesting comparison between Richard III and The Stranger. Check it out here. What do you have to add to this conversation?

Feel free to ask any questions you have about the play. I give blog credit for good questions as well as good comments.

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