SOURCE: Schiffer, James. “The Splintered Glass.” Upstart Crow 20 (2000): 42-57.

In the following essay, Schiffer focuses on Richard III's final soliloquy (V.iii), spoken after he awakens from a sleep disturbed by the visitation of his victims' ghosts. From the perspective of Lacanian psychoanalysis, the critic compares this soliloquy with Richard's earlier ones, especially the soliloquy at the opening of the play (I.i); he concludes that whereas the first demonstrates Richard's remarkable confidence and single-mindedness of purpose, the final soliloquy reveals an incoherent, fragmented self.

Who, if not us, will question once more the objective status of this “I,” which a historical evolution peculiar to our culture tends to confuse with the subject? … An impossible mirage in linguistic forms … in which the subject appears fundamentally in the position of being determinant or instrumental of action.

—Jacques Lacan (Écrits 23)

I'll be at charges for a lookinglass, And entertain a...