SOURCE: Doebler, Bettie Anne. “‘Dispaire and Dye’: The Ultimate Temptation of Richard III.” Shakespeare Studies 7 (1974): 75-85.

In the following essay, Doebler evaluates Richard III's character in the tradition of the dramatic allegory of Vice.

During most of the play Shakespeare's Richard III undergoes little temptation in the usual dramatic sense; in the manner of the conventional dramatic Machiavel, he announces his evil course to the audience and systematically and bloodily carries it out. No audience of any time could doubt the wickedness of Shakespeare's character. Even the twentieth century with its sympathy for the physically deformed instantly recognizes Richard's evil. It is thus not surprising that Mr. Spivack in his Shakespeare and the Allegory of Evil can illustrate so copiously the fundamental connection between Richard and the old Vice of homiletic tragedy.¹

Given the lack of internal conflict in the character, the audience of any time, but especially...