Richard and His Shadow World

The appeal of Richard II to modern audiences may be attributed in part to Shakespeare's constant portrayal of Richard as a character dominated by a set of fantasies (1) which mnifest themselves regularly in his actions and speech and which compose a pattern of behavior that Dr. Ernest Jones has named the God-complex. (2) Since these fantasies occur to some extent in every man (as Shakespeare appears to realize in that he has Richard identify himself with every man), everyone finds some affinity with Richard as the action develops, and this feeling helps to build the fascination that the antic king arouses. But whereas with normal people the sense of reality controls these fantasies and modifies their expression, with Richard a failing sense of reality weakens his inhibitions and his fantasies tend to become real to him. Just how far Richard's feeling for reality is weakened it is not easy to say, but the evidence suggests that it is feeble. People of this sort who are thus dominated by illusions but who still maintain enough contact with reality to give otherwise a general impression of being normal are today recognized by psychiatrists as having some characteristics of schizophrenia and are known as schizoids or ambulatory schizophrenics. (3)

Was Shakespeare aware of this consistent pattern in Richard or did he simply assemble the pattern without realizing that he was describing a special state of mental disintegration? Shakespeare first of all devises conduct. Though he does not probe deeply into the causes for Richard's condition (as he does later for Coriolanus), he does have him exhibit