Doers of Dastardly Deeds

Today is villain-day. And (like most things) nobody does villains better than Shakespeare[1]. They run the gamut from calculating (Claudius) to chaotic (Iago) to crazy (Macbeth). They give some of the best speeches[2], mess with the hero’s head, foil nicely-arranged, loving relationships, have people murdered, do the murdering themselves, and generally wreak havoc and confusion.

I had wanted to do a post on King Lear, which I just finished reading for the first time.  I wanted to talk about insanity, or love, or the evil stepsister trope. I had many plans. But the villains are clamoring for recognition, as they do. So instead, it’s time to talk about Hamlet’s Claudius and Much Ado’s Don John[3].

They are respectively my favorite tragedy and comedy villains. Many people love Iago and his anarchical tendencies, his lack of remorse, and his subversive scheming. I imagine this is the same reason people love Dark Knight’s Joker[4]. But I love Claudius not for his anarchy, but instead his desire for legitimacy (even as he kills his brother for crown and wife) and for his guilt. And I love Don John for owning his dastardly-ness. Iago evades description and labels – he says, “I am not what I am” (Othello, I.i.65); Don John, on the other hand, quite clearly recognizes himself and his role: “[L]et me be that I am, and seek not to alter me” (Much Ado, I.iii.29).

Iago lacks self; Don John and Claudius have self in spades. What better way to examine self than in speeches? Here are my favorites (even more favorite bits highlighted). Read them aloud. Let the words wash over and surround you.

Don John, Much Ado About Nothing, Act I, scene iii, lines 10-14, 21-29.

I cannot hide what I am. I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests; eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure; sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on no man’s business; laugh when I am merry, and claw [flatter] no man his humor. …I had rather be a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood to be disdained of all than to fashion [affect] a carriage [behavior] to rob love from any. In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted with a muzzle, and enfranchised with a clog. Therefore I have decreed [determined] not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth I would bite. If I had my liberty I would do my liking. In the mean time, let me be that I am and seek not to alter me. (translations from the Norton Essential Shakespeare)

Claudius, Hamlet, Act III, scene iii, lines 36-72

Oh, my offense is rank, it smells to heaven;

It hath the primal eldest curse upon’t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,

Though inclination be as sharp as will;

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And like a man to double business bound

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursed hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood?

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto serves mercy

But to confront the visage of offense?

And what’s in prayer but this twofold force,

To be forestalled ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up.

My fault is past. But, oh, what form of prayer

Can serve my turn? “Forgive me my foul murder”?

That cannot be since I am still possessed

Of those effects for which I did the murder –

My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.

May one be pardoned and yet retain th’offense?

…

… What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it when on cannot repent?

Oh, wretched state, oh, bosom black as death!

Oh, limed soul that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angles, make assay.

Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel,

Be soft as sinews of the new-born babe.

All may be well.

[later]

My words fly up, my thoughts remain below.

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

(from Hamlet: Norton Critical Edition)

These speeches and the villains they stand for differ in many ways, first by surface: Claudius speaks blank verse[5], Don John speaks prose. This fits their respective villainies well: Claudius is a king and concerned with power, state, and legitimating his right to rule. Such a man could hardly be expected to break out of verse, even in his most private moment. He retains the symbols of ill-gotten gains (here represented by verse instead of prose) even as he laments his crime. Don John, on the other hand, does not dissemble. His is the prose of a straightforward man. He is less concerned with legitimacy than Claudius, but with honoring his own nature and tendencies: to disrupt, annoy, destroy. 

Don John has no regrets, and I can't help but admire him for it. He declares himself a villain, saying that he would rather be a weed (“canker”) and disdained than be other than what he is: “a plain-dealing villain.” He refuses to play nice, or pretend a love that he does not feel; he will eat, sleep, and laugh when it pleases him and no-one else. “Let me be that I am,” he declares, “and seek not to alter me.” He will not change his destructive ways, for he is answerable only to himself – he will do as pleases him, others’ feelings and lives be hanged. He refuses ceremony and ritual, deference and social graces. He will not subsume his own will in order to get on with others. He does not feel badly for what he is.

Claudius, on the other hand, has many regrets, and still, I am admiring. He regrets, he introspects – and yet, he does not repent. Oh sure, he talks a lot about repenting and absolution, but his “thought remain below.” Though he makes a show of praying, even he recognizes that his ambition and desire for crown and queen prevent him from effectively praying. He cannot repent while still holding on to “those effects for which [he] did the murder” – and he is not willing to give them up.

Claudius regrets: he recognizes his villainy as something wrong and abhorred by heaven; he even likens himself to Cain, the first brother-killer. He sees the evilness of killing his brother and taking his kingdom and wife, but cannot actually let go of his own advancement. This is a man whose “ambition has throttled his morality” (from The Eyre Affair) – but the interesting bit is that he recognizes it. He has remorse, he sees his wrongs, but it’s not enough to bring him to repentance.  

xo, 

Devo

Undoubtedly, some of these musings influenced by many a Shakespeare professor. 

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[1] Well, Q and the Borg from TNG are pretty great. And Firefly’s reavers are terrifying. But we don’t really get into their psyches like we do with Shax’s villains.

[2] For the end-all, be-all of villainous speech-giving, read Paradise Lost; Satan’s speeches are incredible.

[3] Which I always want to spell “Don Jon,” because symmetry.

[4] Never having seen it, I cannot say for sure.

[5] A post detailing my love of blank verse is forthcoming.