The Tragedy of King Richard III: Richard The character Richard, in the Shakespearean play The Tragedy of King Richard III, progressively isolates himself as he separates from the other characters and breaks the bond between man and God through his efforts to gain power. As he hates "the idle pleasures of these days" (I, i, 31) and speaks of his plots to set one brother against another, Richard becomes socially apart from the figures around him, and he is regarded as an outsider because of his deformity. Although the isolation of Richard is the real tragedy in the play, Richard is