Search for Identity in Richard IIIShakespeare's Richard II tells the story of Richard's fall from power. Being dethroned by Bolingbroke forces Richard to face the limits and nature of his power as king. As audience members, we follow Richard on his journey of self-discovery, which enlightens him even as his life is turned upside down by Bolingbroke's uprising. Paradoxically, it is in total defeat that Richard comes closest to understanding what it means to be human. Unfortunately he is unable to accept life as an ordinary subject after having tasted what it means to rule. For God's sake, let us sit on the ground and tell sad stories about the death of kings: how some were deposed, some killed in war, some haunted by the ghosts they deposed, some poisoned by their wives, some killed in their sleep, all murdered. For within the empty crown that surrounds a king's mortal temples, Death holds his court; and there sits the fool, mocking his state and smiling at his pomp, giving him a little breathing room, a little scene, to monarchize, be feared and kill with looks, infusing him with himself and vain conceit, as if this flesh that walls on our lives The brass was impregnable; and thus humored, comes to the end, and with a little pinBores through the walls of his castle; and farewell, king. Cover your heads and do not mock flesh and blood with solemn reverence. Out of respect, tradition, form and ceremonious duty, because all this time you have only misunderstood me. I live on bread, like you; feel the desire, taste the pain, need friends. Subjected like this, how can you tell me that I am a king? (III.ii. 151-1173)The above speech expresses well Rich...... middle of the paper......n is,With nothing he will be content until he is relievedWith being nothing. (Vv38-41)Richard can never feel "relieved" from being ordinary, from being what he sees as "nothingness" and therefore can never live as a subject rather than a ruler. It is perhaps significant that when he dies he seeks to return to the only identity he truly knew, that of sovereign, and warns that "Exeter, your fierce hand / Has stained the King's land with the King's blood" (Vv 109-10). He has intellectually accepted the transitory nature of the power of kings and understands that he can no longer possess even that, yet in death he achieves the only identity he has ever truly possessed, that of absolute monarch. Works Cited: Shakespeare, William. The tragedy of King Richard II. William Shakespeare: The Complete Works. Ed. Alfred Harbage. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1969.