Cross Characterization

As I am reading through “Richard the III” I can’t help but notice a simple connection in characterization that exists between this play and “Hamlet.”  Throughout the later the audience is fascinated by the psychological depth of Hamlet.  For example, in act 2 scene 2 he curses:

“Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!...

  I a dull and muddy-mettled rascal, peak

  Like John-a-dreams, unpregnant of my cause,

  And can say nothing – no, not for a king

  Upon whose property and most dear life

  A damned defeat was made.  Am I a coward?”

Similarly, in “Richard the III” the audience is at once repulsed, and allured by the king-to-be.  Look at his opening soliloquy:

           “Cheated of feature by dissembling Nature,

 Deformed, unfinished, sent before my time

 Into this breathing world scarce half made up,

And that so lamely and unfashionable

That dogs bark at me as I halt by them-…

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover

            To entertain these fair well-spoken days,

            I am determined to prove a villain

            And hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

There is a similarity among these self aware characters that makes them more accessible to the audience.  While a given individual might not correlate with the death-plotting of these characters, by making them self aware the audience is able to relate to their sense of brooding, their questioning nature that muses over the finite principles of life.  These two of Shakespeare’s psychological characters in this way attach themselves to the dark side of human nature in the audience, which even if detested, or overcome through saintly living, is still recognizable in some degree in the audience.  What other similarities I will find by cross analyzing the plays?  This is fun!