Richard III

4 Pages 942 Words

Josephine Tey’s The Daughter of Time is the literary cousin of Oliver Stone’s film “JFK.” Both are works of fiction meant to turn historically accepted events on their heads. In “JFK” Kevin Costner’s character tries to disprove that Oswald killed the president; Grant thinks Richard III an innocent man. Both of these works make the original, accepted story of what ‘really’ happened sound preposterous. By the time all three hours of “JFK” were over I felt sorry for Oswald, I thought there was a conspiracy and hated Tommy Lee Jones even more. I took Oliver Stone’s word over what my text books told me. The same story proved true when I finished reading The Daughter of Time. If anything, both of these works definitely bring valid points to the forefront, and make one think about other possibilities rather than accepting what we are fed in our text books. Tey definitely convinced me that Richard III did not kill his nephews and his character blackened by Henry Tudor.
My opinion of Richard being innocent has a lot to do with Grant’s comment about ‘historians not being very interested in psychology.’ As described in TDOT, Richard had known the boys since their births and saw them as people; to Henry they were symbols. It’s much easier to wipe out a symbol than a person. Also, TDOT brings up several other ‘common sense’ points against Richard’s villainy. How could Tyrrell retrieve the keys to the Tower for one night, sneak in unnoticed, smother two young boys, sneak out, and replace the keys? If he was so well known in that day he could not have gone unnoticed. Upon his execution why was his confession of the murder not recorded? Tey has convinced me that Henry Tudor was actually the villain, but imposed all of these characteristics and images on Richard to better his reign and reputation. It is also slightly more scandalous.
”The threats to the Tudor dynasty continued from within and fr...