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Imagery In King Richard II

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Imagery helps to paint a picture in the mind in addition it helps to evoke an emotional response from the reader. Allowing a reader to see, smell, taste and feel through the words. Shakespeare used this method in other poems and plays and was practiced at its execution. In King Richard II comparing England to a garden is just one of the examples, he also uses a tree to help to visualize a family bloodline and being a king is related to an overgrown garden. The use of imagery in the play The Tragedy of King Richard II allowed Shakespeare to call attention to topics in a romantic way rather than in a crude manner. In Act 2 Scene 2 John of Gaunt is on his deathbed when he delivers an eloquent monologue where he is comparing England to a garden. …show more content…

John of Gaunt is talking to the Duchess of Glouster about the death of her husband, Gaunt’s own brother. The Duchess is distraught that the murderer of her husband is not to be brought to an appropriate justice. It is implied that King Richard is the one that ordered her husband be killed because of jelousy. In this scene the Duchess compares Edward’s blood line to a tree as she berates Gaunt for not taking action; “Were as seven vials of his sacred blood Or seven fair branches springing from one root. Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course, Some of those branches by the Destinies cut; But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester, One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood, One flourishing branch of his most royal root, Is cracked, and all the precious liquor spilt, Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded, By envy’s hand and murder’s bloody ax” (Shakespeare, c.1595, Act 1, Scene 2, Lines 13-21). She compares her husbands death to the premature severing of a branch from a tree when it was in its …show more content…

Ironically the Queen is in the garden trying to find some distraction for her worried mind. She is concerned for her husband and his fate when she overhears the gardener speaking of her husbands doom and wrong doings. The gardener and his helper are discussing the state of the garden in relation to the state of the kingdom; “When our sea-walled garden, the whole land, Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up, Her friut trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined, Her knots disordered, and her wholesome herbs Swarming with caterpillars” (Shakespeare, c.1595, Act 3, Scene 4, Lines 40-47). They go on to openly discuss the consequence of the kings actions in lines 47-52 “Hold thy peace. He that hath suffered this disordered spring Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf. The weeds which his broad-spreding leaves did shelter, That seemed in eating him to hold him up, Are plucked up root and all by Bolinbroke” (Shakespeare, c.1595, Act 3, Scene 4, Lines 47-52). The gardener feels that even though King Richard has done wrong and will answer for those transgressions, he did not act alone and was influenced by the people he chose to surround himself

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