The Downfall of Hastings In this extract in Act 3 of the masterpiece: King Richard III written by William Shakespeare, the filthy Richard is in the midst of "getting rid" of a few people that he believes might stand in his way of getting the throne. At the beginning of this passage, Ely, Hastings and Stanley are waiting for Richard and Buckingham to return to the Tower of London because before that, Richard had gone to have a quick word with Buckingham. The discussion that they have after Richard returns, truly changes the relationship between Richard and Hastings due to Richard's actions. These changes in relationships show the complexity of Richard's plan and his great ability to manipulate and persuade others to usually allow Richard to move forward in his execution of his plan to become the King of England. …show more content…
At the beginning, Hastings calls Richard "his grace" which is a synecdoche because it means that Richard is a person who has grace. This shows that Hastings respects Richard and has a very well friendship with Richard as he thinks that Richard is graceful. Hastings is talking to Stanley later on and explaining his ability to figure out exactly how Richard is feeling because he thinks that "there's never a man in Christendom Can lesser hide his love or hate, than he,". Hastings refers to Richard as a man in Christendom by which he is calling him a very religious person. The usage of oxymoron in this phrase shows the contrast of the two totally different emotions which are love and hate. It is understood by reading this quote that Hastings genuinely believes that he and Richard are great friends and that he is such