Richard's character exposed

"Arise, dissembler: though I wish thy death, I will not be the executioner" (1.2.170-171). This quote is said by Lady Anne to Richard III after Richard confesses his "love" to her. He tells her to stab him and she decides not to. I think this is really highlighting and helping us to understand the character of Richard in comparison to the other characters in the play. It also helps us to see what kind of marriage Lady Anne is getting herself into, as well as what kind of character Lady Anne is herself.

State of the Union... Sad!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSrEEDQgFc8

        I chose this clip from Meet The Press for the obvious reason that 'alternative facts' described by Counselor to the President, Kellyanne Conway parallel the theme of Tonypandy within The Daughter in Time. The manipulation of information is not only prevalent in news media and White House press briefings today, but was also prevalent in the Medieval ages, and was a tactic utilized by many to oust previous rulers.

        Ultimately, I agree with Grant's claim that King Richard III's portrayal as a monstrous-hunchback-mass killer is a distortion of the truth. The Tudor regime ascended to the throne by way of riding the coattail of a falsehood that King Richard III had maliciously tortured and eradicated his only opposition to the crown. When in reality, Henry VII rescinded the Titulus Regius Act and spread 'alternative facts' in order to ensure that his ascension to the crown would not be disputed, despite the fact that he may have been the product of a long line of illegitimacy.

Tonypandy For Your Thoughts.

Left to right foreground; Henry, Earl of March, King Richard III, and Richard, Duke of York (Robert East, Peter Cook, and Brian Blessed respectively) in season 1, episode 1 of Black Adder in 1983.

Intro Black Adder Season 1 Episode 1 (only watch the first 1:06)

   History is written by the victors? Not necessarily. Sometimes, all it takes is a lie in a sympathetic novel, or a monument that fires the imagination.
   The name "Tonypandy" is used over and over in Daughter of Time, being adopted by Allen Grant and his associates as shorthand for "historical myths many people consider to be facts". the name comes from the Tonypandy riots in Wales, where miners demanding better wages and safety regulations were confronted by police armed with "rolled-up Mackintoshes" (according to Tey, 104). After reading this, and the associated myth-turned-popular-fact that soldiers who were ordered into the area fired upon the rioters, I went looking for the source of the myth. What I found was Cwmardy, a "documentary novel" by Lewis Jones, a trade union leader contemporary to the riots. his book includes a completely fictional incident where 11 miners were gunned down by soldiers.

    In the reading for today,Grant and Carradine discuss another bit of Tonypandy, the public image of the Covenanters. Grant received a letter from his friend Laura, which told him about a set of monuments in Scotland. These were dedicated to "two women martyrs, drowned for their faith" (Tey 130). It turned out not only were they convicted of treason in connection with an invasion from Holland (rather than for religious reasons) and were granted a reprieve instead of executed.
  Laura's letter concludes by noting the reaction people have when told about such things. "it's an odd thing but when you tell someone the facts of a mythical tale, they are indignant not with the teller but with you" (131). The phenomenon of cognitive dissonance is one we are all distressingly familiar with these days. People will cling to what they believe, or to what supports their own position, regardless of facts.

Tonypandy Created the Rubix Cube

Throughout this book we analyze Alan Grant as he uses every resource he has surrounding him to help mold his impression on Richard III. I say this because Grant uses multiple sources of different mediums whether its a person or portrait. I allude to Tonypandy and the rubix cube because if someone does not know how to solve a rubix cube, they will simply shuffle throughout the millions of unsolved combinations. In addition this "Tonypandy rub cube" will can never be solved. As Grant asks by standers or nurses about their impression of Richard III and whether he was a killer or not, represents the shuffling of the Tonypandy cube. Grant may ask dozens of other people about their impression or prior knowledge of Richard III however, he will never know the truth. I believe that relates to our class discussion of history and fiction because after reading this book, history may as well be fiction. Especially with a topic like Richard III who lived a very long time ago, no one to this day knows the truth about him because there have been passings from generation to generation of influenced stories to make hi sound like a hero or a murderer for biased reasons.

We All Have Our Own Tonypandy

"More Tonypandy, he thought. " (Pg. 132) How many of us say this on a daily basis? Probably not many, but we do say "what is the point of this?", "why do I need to know this?" Or even "what was the purpose of saying that?" Overall in The Daughter of Time, Tonypandy is present.  My take on Tonypandy is that it's basically unneeded information, statements or maybe even people that enter our lives.  This is present in today's society and was clearly present in the past.  Although many of the resources Grant pulls from may be reliable such as the portrait he examines and the school history book, who's to say there isn't some Tonypandy hidden in there? We discussed last class how the portrait of Richard III can be viewed from many different point such of view, so there's really no way to know the true image of Richard III.  On a larger scale, the discussions he has with people such as his surgon and a few of his friends about Richard III's portrait should not be taken into consideration for facts.  That hearsay goes hand in hand with Tonypandy and basically has no business in his investigation.  There are many situations like this in our present day, some on a smaller scale such as rumors in a high school, and some on a larger scale like unnecessary tweets posted by our president.  All in all society has changed on a large scale through the years, but some parts will never be unchanged.

CULTURE 2 = album of the year- reflective major challenge

Will Lacy

ENGL 250

Team Herodotus

Analytical Reflection on the Daughter of Time

Every American knows the story of George Washington and the cherry tree. The classic tale of how our nation’s first president was such a great guy that he owned up to chopping down his father’s cherry tree. Most historians agree, that this story was merely a tall tale, however. This story is merely propaganda. George Washington led a successful rebellion against the British Empire, and it is the victors who get to write history. Had Washington been defeated by the British, the stories that we tell about him today would probably not be as heroic. Propagating your leader isn’t simply an American thing, all bureaucratic powers throughout history have done this. The British, whom Washington was rebelling against, are no exception to this. Not only did they exaggerate the accomplishments of their leaders, but they spurned those they defeated with equally exaggerated stories. The most famous of these negative stories is the tale of the two princes. This British fable claims that King Richard III locked his predecessors sons in a tower and had them murdered to attain the throne after the death of their father. The novel, Daughter of Time, investigates the legitimacy of this tale. This mystery novel follows Allan Grant, a British investigator, as he forms an argument against this story being true. With the help of a British historian, Grant was able to break down the personality of King Richard, and the events leading up to the disappearance of the two princes. By the end of the novel he concluded that Britain was the victim of a tall tale surrounding their last king to die in battle. This staple of British lore is merely just part of British propaganda. One big piece of evidence that grant held to in the book was the fact that Richard III was the last English King to die in battle. His death marked the end of his family’s dynasty, and ushered in the reign of the Tudor family. The rest of the evidence surrounding King Richard was too sketchy and so Grant concluded that the Tudor family fabricated much of the story of the two princes in order to gain more public support for their rule. This story is just more proof that you shouldn’t always believe what you hear. Human beings are motivated by power, and so unfortunately in our world we have to question not what a person is saying, but why they are saying it. Everything that leaves your mouth does so for a reason, because something motivated you to speak. Weather that is telling a joke, asking someone to borrow a pen, or smearing the name of your predecessor, you will always speak in a way that will benefit yourself. Those who hold power in society are no different and so that is why we must always examine the motives behind those that we listen to the most, the privileged few that hold government office.

Grant's Quest for clarity

I found the first nine chapters of The Daughter of Time ties in with our discussion of what is history/fiction. History is usually describe and associated with fact and is separate from fiction. The depiction of Richard III is that he is an ugly human and a killer. Our main character Alan Grant, is a detective and tries uncover the truth behind who Richard III really was. Grant and his associates are all interpreting different pictures and readings to try and found out what is true history and what is fiction when it comes to the uncertainty of who Richard III really was. Was he the rightfully the last King of the Middle Ages in England? Or was he a power-hungry nephew killer.While reading I found that there is a lot of confusion following the families and it is difficult to know who comes next. “Every Schoolboy turned over the last page of Richard III with relief, because now at last the War of the Roses were over and they could get on to the Tudors, who were dull but easy to follow.” (34) It seems to be a difficult family tree to follow for students in England. I feel that differing between history and fiction is even more difficult. Grant and his associates continue their push to differentiate the between history and fiction. They find that Thomas More’s account of Richard III was based upon false statements from John Morton who was “Richard’s bitterest enemy” (95). I think that this shows that John may have been biased in his interpretation of Richard and tried to paint him to be a bad person ergo, Richard might not have been such a bad guy. There is a lot of evidence that needs to be addressed by the characters to properly distinguish the facts. I’m excited to follow Grant as he attempts to separate true history from fiction.

Work cited

The Daughter of Time Josephine Tey

An Embellished Historical Figure: The Psychedelic Progressive Rock Way

On the case of Richard III and how he is approached in The Daughter of Time, I am reminded, as I often am, of a Pink Floyd song; "Corporal Clegg". Without writing an essay on the song itself (although I would love to), I'll condense my reasoning to this: the corporal in question, to the knowledge of anyone outside of Roger Waters' head, is loosely based on Waters' father, but embellished and made more appropriate for the song at hand (goofy and off-beat, that is). Clearly the situation is dissimilar (Grant and Richard III vs. Pink Floyd fans and this song) but the parallels are there- different levels of embellishment for different purposes.

Pink Floyd - "Corporal Clegg", A Saucerful of Secrets (1968)

The Portrait of Villainy

The thing I found most interesting about this reading occurred in the second chapter, when Grant and the Surgeon are discussing Richard III, who is also- of course- our key point of discussion in class as of last time. Grant is examining a portrait of the late King, and invites his Surgeon to do so as well. As they do, the following exchange occurs:

‘Who is it?’ the surgeon asked.
‘Richard the Third.’
‘Really? That’s interesting.’
‘Did you know that he had a withered arm?’
‘Had he? I didn’t remember that. I thought he was a hunchback.’
‘So he was.’
‘What I do remember is that he was born with a full set of teeth and ate live frogs. Well, my diagnosis seems to be abnormally accurate.’

I immediately found myself relating this to an issue I'd seen raised online earlier about Disney; specifically about how the villains are often malformed or bearing unique, striking features in comparison to the protagonists, who often feel rather generic and cookie cutter. Take for example withered and eerie appearance of the Queen from Snow White when she disguises herself as an old woman, the muscular, big-jawed and big-toothed face of Clayton from Tarzan, or the gaunt, dark-toned and (obviously) scarred form of Scar from The Lion King.

With the occasional exception, of course.

Obviously, there's no direct relation, since as far as I'm aware there's no Disney film about Richard III. (Not yet, anyway.) But it did make me think about how so often we twist the image of someone we perceive as evil into some sort of crooked, twisted creature whose outsides reflect their darker insides. The idea of Richard III as having a hunched back, a withered arm, and eating live frogs paints him as more monster than man, a caricature of his perceived villainy. I just found it quite funny that this odd description of Richard makes him appear almost as though he was an animated Disney villain, or a monster of legend. I feel like it says a lot about how we view villainous figures that we turn them into such deformed, hideous things when in reality they may not have been nearly so twisted- after all, I've certainly never heard about Richard III having a withered arm/hunch back/an appetite for live frogs. It could certainly be true, but I've still never heard it before.