The Usurped Son: More Shakespeare in RDR2

Continuing to discuss the influence of William Shakespeare on RDR2.

All articles on this site feature detailed discussion of literary allusions in Red Dead Redemption 2, and as such contain unmarked major and minor spoilers for the game, and occasionally the eventual fates of some characters in Red Dead Redemption. Read at your own risk.

Part I

Hamlet

During “A Fine Night of Debauchery,” Arthur Morgan grumbles to Josiah Trelawny, “This ain’t Hamlet.” This is the writers begging us to notice that this is Hamlet. Happy to oblige.

After the death of his father, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius marries Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, and becomes king. One of the senses of discomfort this creates — the rottenness in the state of Denmark — is that Hamlet is of age. Under the rules of primogeniture, he should be king. Arthur is similarly infantilized. He’s one of the founding members of the gang, the “Old Guard,” as Dutch Van der Linde says. But while Dutch sees Hosea Matthews as his equal, he treats Arthur like a stupid child. Take, for example, the Blackwater money. Micah Bell says in camp dialog that only Dutch and Hosea know where it is. Why doesn’t Arthur? He’s always been loyal, and he’s always been there. Even Hosea and Bessie Matthews left for a time and tried to go straight. Dutch has to keep Arthur in this unnaturally inferior position to retain power, just like Claudius does to Hamlet.

Hamlet and John Milton’s Satan are both prototypical Byronic heroes, and, in fact, Hamlet influenced Milton’s Satan. For instance, Hamlet says “There is nothing either good nor bad,/but thinking makes it so” (II.2.244-245). Satan echoes this when he says “The mind is its own place, and in itself/Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven” (I.254-255). Dutch is largely based on Lord Byron and on Milton’s Satan. Given that RDR2 shows Hosea to be Arthur’s “real” father, we might not expect Byronic DNA to also appear in Arthur — but perhaps it isn’t surprising, given how the game argues that Arthur is both good and bad.

We all know Hamlet’s famous question: “To be or not to be.” He isn’t just talking about suicide; he’s asking whether he can find the willpower to take action against his uncle or not. Arthur, similarly, has to figure out whether he’ll continue following Dutch or stand up to him. Through most of Chapter 6, we see Arthur not knowing quite what to do, or not quite being able to work up the will to do it. This is Hamlet’s position throughout most of the play.

In the final act, Hamlet reveals to the court that Claudius murdered his brother, Hamlet’s father. Arthur reveals to the gang that Micah has turned informant to the Pinkertons. Both Hamlet and Arthur die shortly after making these revelations. The Pinkertons attack during Arthur’s confrontation with Micah; a foreign nation attacks during Hamlet’s confrontation with Claudius.

Romeo & Juliet

RDR2 alludes to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet just enough to warrant the play getting its own section. Beau Gray and Penelope Braithwaite’s relationship is the most obvious representation, although as we’ll see, their story is more directly inspired by another work. Arthur himself draws the comparison: he calls Penelope and Beau’s relationship “some inbred retelling of Romeo and Juliet” in “Advertising, the New American Art.” In “Pouring Forth Oil IV,” John refers to a couple on the train as “Romeo and Juliet.” And in “Just a Social Call,” Cornwall tells the mine manager that something will “bring a plague on both our houses.” He’s loosely quoting Romeo and Juliet. In that play, the character Mercutio is stabbed, and as he’s dying, says “A plague o’ both your houses!” (III.1.91). Mercutio was caught in the middle of the feud between the Capulets and Montagues and is cursing both families. It’s rather an odd thing for Cornwall to say, to be honest — allusions are shoehorned into the text at times whether they fit or not — but in a sense, it foreshadows his death moments later.

Other Allusions

Names

Gertrude Braithwaite. RDR2‘s Gertrude Braithwaite may be named for the character in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. The Braithwaites have a reputation for marrying their relatives, and this inbreeding is presumably supposed to be the cause of Gertrude’s disabilities. Hamlet’s Gertrude married her deceased husband’s brother, which at the time was regarded as incest (just ask Henry VIII).

Horatio. The mail clerk at Van Horn may be named for the character from Hamlet. However, I don’t know of any details that would confirm this.

Places

Bard’s Crossing. The “Bard” in “Bard’s Crossing” refers to Shakespeare as well as Orpheus.

Points of Interest

The Withered Arm Point of Interest is, in part, an allusion to Shakespeare’s Richard III. Shakespeare greatly exaggerated Richard’s disabilities to reflect his evil nature (which is obviously tiresomely ableist, as RDR2 often is). Richard III had scoliosis; Shakespeare claims he had a hunchback. The body in the swamp has a severely twisted neck/spine. Shakespeare’s Richard also has a withered arm, which he claims is the result of being bewitched: “Behold mine arm/Is like a blasted sapling withered up” (III.4.69-70).

The Withered Arm is probably also an allusion to former and current US President Donald Trump. As the journal entries stress when the player character records the scene, the corpse is found in the swamp — a word that buffoon was all too fond of using in his first campaign. The body’s tiny hand is likely an allusion to the meme about Trump’s small hands. Like Trump, the body is bald on top, with long, scraggly hair on the lower part of the head.

Whether this is also supposed to be Archibald MacGregor’s uncle Reginald is unclear. Archibald says that Reginald had a child-sized hand, but doesn’t mention his arm being deformed (“The New South”). This may simply be an oversight (there are plenty of them in the game, which is to be expected in something of this scope). It’s worth noting that if you wanted to use an existing name that somehow combined “Richard” and “Donald,” “Reginald” would probably be the most obvious choice. The combination is fitting: Both men are totally immoral misogynists who imprisoned children.

It must be said that one can draw a straight line from Rockstar’s nurturing of misogynist attitudes to Gamergate to the alt-right to Trump’s election. They hardly deserve praise for vague and ableist mockery of a fascist.

Mission Names

“The Course of True Love” is from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” The line is “The course of true love never did run smooth” (I.1.134).

Other Allusions to Shakespeare in RDR2

Sonnet 18. In camp dialog, Dutch flirts with Molly by asking, “What shall I compare thee to?” This is an allusion to one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, which begins: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” (This particular love poem was addressed to a young man, which I mention because the current US government is attempting to erase queer history and fuck them.)

Richard III. The cheat code “My kingdom is a horse” is an allusion to the most famous line in Richard III: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse!” (V.4.13).

Hamlet. The cheat code “Death is silence” is probably an allusion to Hamlet’s line, “The rest is silence” (V.2.301). As is the case with Richard’s words above, these are the last words the title character speaks before dying.

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