Richard is in every way the most dominant character of the play that bears his name, to the extent that he is both the protagonist of the story and its major villain. Richard III is an intense exploration of the psychology of evil, and that exploration is centred on and in Richard's mind. Richard seems like a one-sided embodiment of evil. However, Richard proves to be highly manipulative and highly complicated "making his heinous acts all the more chilling.
One of the first impressions of Richard that we have is his jealousy for his brother, King Edward IV. When Richard speaks about his brother "[capering] nimbly in a lady's chamber " and that he is not "shaped for sportive tricks " it suggests that he is constantly comparing his deformed body to his brother who is handsome, so is lucky enough to lure a woman into his bedchamber (even though he has got a wife). Richard is making the audience feel sympathy through this part of his speech because we understand his grief and pain for not being able to ever look good enough for women to want him and this is embarrassing for men, in general. Furthermore, Richard's deformity continues to shoot him down when he says that "dogs bark at [him] " when he walks by them because the dogs are probably terrified of his appearance. It is like the dogs are downgrading him and making him lower standard than them. This makes Richard seem like he lacks confidence in himself which gives him more sympathy from the audience and this, in a way, encourages him to carry on with his monologue. He is toying with the audiences' minds by using his disability to melt into our hearts like he does with Anne (his future wife) later on in the play, by choosing his words and actions properly.
Another impression that we have of Richard, which is presented by Shakespeare, is that he is evil and this impression is immediately confirmed when Richard open-mindedly announces that "[he is] determined to prove a villain ".
