Close Reading of an Extract from Richard III

Shakespeare Close Reading Exercise

Richard III

Act V, Scene iii lines 178-237 Richard’s Dream

This extract is taken from one of the most revealing scenes in the play, as Shakespeare encourages us to compare Richard’s character with that of Richmond, as a straightforward set of binary oppositions – good and evil, strength and weakness, morality and immorality. This device is exaggerated in the scene as a whole by the dramatist’s ability to move swiftly between the two armies, enabling the audience to consider the startling differences between the two men. Throughout the scene, Shakespeare interweaves reality with the dream world, juxtaposing the realism of the armies with the surrealism and supernatural quality of the ghostly apparitions. In this short extract, one of the most exciting points in the play, Richard wakes from his dream with thoughts of death and vengeance. His final words in the play will be “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse”, so his fir...