Sakepeare, Richard III, acte III scène 5

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Beside Richard, Buckingham is a witness of his false perfection. He needs him to perfect the illusion of his propaganda.

Furthermore, propaganda has on purpose to destruct possibility of choice and will give the illusion of an agreement between the propagandist and his victim. The victim here is the mayor. Richard and Buckingham succeed in convincing him to believe that they have to murder Hasting because he was a traitor and that their people did it before he came by love and overprotection of them: “great preservation”. At first, Buckingham explains the situation as the result of a miracle; it means that god is with them and it is good for their propaganda. They present themselves as saviours of England to justify Hasting’s murder. Plus, “Turks” and “Infidels” are the two enemies of the kingdom at this time. Thus they use things that really touched people at this time to convince them. Here, The mayor represents the good citizens happy to believe everything and overlook the holes in history. The word “grace” is used again by the mayor, to name them, and this time in a very respectful manner.

In the end, to perfect their story, Buckingham makes a new story that everyone will believe. He disfigures the facts. He uses the conditional perfect. “I would have” ; “I might have” but this is a conditional that in reality is irrevocable. The mayor answers to conclude “As well as I had seen and heard him speak” => syntax of this sentence transforms the fact in an effective action. The illusion becomes effective, it’s like if the scene had effectively happened. The mayor grants them justice.

During all the scene, They don’t hide what they are doing because at the end Richard III admits in front of the mayor what they really want to avoid: censorship.

“yet witness” : illusion

- Contamination to obtain unanimity

There is like a transfusion in propaganda to adapt to different public and then contagion in order to obtain unanimity.

Richard describes how to get people attention and obtain their agreement in the last part.“At your meet’st advantage of the time”: propagandists used chaos to obtain what they wanted (like Hitler)

He again sets up a lie: he describes Edwards, unlike the vision he wants to give of himself, as an animal : “bestial” , “raging eye”, “hasting luxury”, who responds to his instincts. He says that he almosr committed almost all the deadly sins: luxury, greed, envies, and gluttony…He also sets up a new story for his family, to cloak himself of compassion. Comparison between “play” and “plead”

And to finish, like the frosting on the cake, He doesn’t forget to be surrounded by clerical people, church was indeed the most important at this time. He uses sacred for his propaganda which is secular.

To conclude: This stage is an open demonstration of how was propaganda at this time for the audience. Every step of propaganda are deconstructed. However we are going to see that it will not work so much with people in next scene when Buckingham will speak to people in front of the Mayor’s house.