Tag Archives: character

Harmatia of Richard II

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I do not know the ending of Richard II, but the play foreshadows a tragic ending, with King Richard as its tragic hero. At the onset of the play, King Richard does not seem to be such a terrible character, and he appears to be rather righteous. (In fact, historically, Richard II was not as bad as Shakespeare later depicts.) But as the story progresses, we begin to notice some things that are off. For one thing, his joyful response to the news of his uncle’s sickness is far to cold to be of a righteous person, let alone a righteous king. His harmatia, or “fatal flaw” is his greed and hunger for power that elicits his response to the news of his uncle.

In many ways, King Richard is comparable to Macbeth, for the two kings share this fatal flaw. Queen Isabel is analogous to Lady Macbeth. Each plays their role as the typical female as emotional characters. Lady Macbeth has a guilty conscious for Macbeth’s deeds similar to how the queen senses that something bad will happen when King Richard leaves for Ireland. Both have a maternal type of paranoia that actually yields wise predictions.

On a side note, Richard II was not an easy read, as is any Shakespeare play. I have not yet ever seen a Shakespeare play performed live, and I am curious to see how the characters are played out, or whether or not I’ll be able to keep up.

How We Overlook Don Juan’s Flaws

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Don Juan is a disgusting character. He uses women and discards them, breaking their hearts abusively. He does this all for his own pleasure. Then he dares to make eloquent excuses, expressing his reasoning in a way that puts his horrid actions in a positive light. If we were to meet such a man in the real world, we would detest him and say terrible things about him.

Yet, one cannot help but love the character of Don Juan.

Perhaps its because his aforementioned eloquent excuses capture us. Perhaps its simply because he is so amusing.

How is it that we are able to look past his obvious flaws? Usually, we forgive characters because of the story behind their mistakes. Maybe the character had a rough past, or maybe the character was abused as a child. However, we know of no such thing in the case of Don Juan. In fact, we know very little about his past. There are no reasons for his awful nature; that’s just the way he is.

In this sense, Don Juan is an unrealistic character. He has such strong characteristics of pride and domination, but he is not dynamic. He does not change through the course of the story and he is a flat character, making it difficult for the reader to relate to him.

This may be the very reason we overlook his flaws. He is not a real person, just a character. We do not take him seriously. He is made up to be amusing; thus we find him so.