In act 1, scene 1, of William Shakespeare's Richard III, the author uses such soliloquy for two purposes:
- To introduce the audience information about the characters. For instance, let's take the following excerpt:
"Cheated of feature by dissembling nature,
Deformed, unfinish'd, sent before my time
Into the breathing world, scarce half made up."
Here, the character, Gloucester, considers he is terrible looking and he attributes it to the fact that he was born premature.
- Another reason Shakespeare used a soliloquy in the opening scene is for the audience to gain insight about the inner conflict as well as picturing the playwright's environment. For example, in this fragment below:
"And all the clouds that lour'dupon our house
In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.
Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths;
Our bruised arms hung upfor monuments;
Our stern alarmus changed to merry meetings,
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures."
The character pictures his environment through military imaginery and he metaphorically compares all of the earlier conflict in the War of Roses to clouds.
