Evil for Evil's Sake: Don John, Satan and One-Dimensional Villainy

William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, a festive comedy written ca. 1599, is a showcase for all sorts of human treachery, including slander and the injustice of the patriarchal system.  These are issues which still plague society and capture the attention of the modern day reader.  However, it's worth noting that the play's explicit villain, Don John, barely figures into this discussion.  He may be the source of the stain on Hero's good name, but his motivations and actions fade into the mental background.

The simplest, and most likely, explanation for this tendency is the fact that Don John is a very one-dimensional villain.  There is no need to discuss his motivations because he barely has any.  In fact, J. Albert Shepherd argues that Don John is "the only example of absolutely motiveless villainy" to be found in Shakespeare's oeuvre (346).  There are no practical ends to his madness and no high-minded principles he deigns to follow; if there is ever a character in Shakespeare's work that just wants to watch the world burn, it would be Don John.

While I believe that a monstrous villain can be compelling to read about, Don John just does not fit that bill.  The reason for that is a matter worth discussing, and I feel that comparison to one of the greatest villains in all of literature is appropriate: Satan from John Milton's Paradise Lost.  In fact, I would and will argue that Milton's Satan is an improved version of Don John, creating a villain who, while lacking sympathetic motivations, is exciting to read about and tempting to root for.  Yes, I shall be comparing something unfavorably to epitome of evil.  This shall be fun.

In this article, I shall first argue that Don John and Satan belong to the same archetypal categories of villains, as laid out by Orrin E. Klapp.  In addition, I will posit that a link between Shakespeare and Milton's characters, while unnoted in scholarship, is in fact a plausible one.  From that point, we may discuss why Satan works as a compelling villain and Don John does not, despite them being so similar in personal makeup.  This discussion will ultimately come down to two points: the size of the threat posed and the eloquence of the characters' stated goals.

Klapp and Villain-Types

Before I begin, I should concede a bit of ethnocentrism in this piece.  As I have neither the time nor the space to research the villain-types identified in every modern society, I will be assuming an American point-of-view in terms of villainy; given the influence of American media worldwide, I feel there is some universality to these archetypes.  There is an argument to be made that to apply such a viewpoint to the creation of a 16th century British man writing about people in Sicily is unfair, but I feel it is impossible to view past works while ignoring the modern perspective.  That said...

I have mentioned Orrin E. Klapp before on this blog; in my piece on the music of Fitz and The Tantrums, I brought up what Klapp refers to as the "parasite" or "chisler" villain-type; in that case it took the form of the "gold-digger" stereotype.  This particular villain-type does not apply to Don John, but Klapp lists off many more roles and sources for antagonists in the American imagination, which he largely separates into two broad groups: "high-visibility" and "low-visibility", based on whether the villain acts in a manner obvious to heroes or society.

I say "largely", because the most obvious subtype into which Don John fits is actually a miscellaneous category based on what Klapp terms "ambiguous vilifying epithets".  The first epithet he lists is "bastard", which is what Don John is.  According to Klapp, to be labeled as a bastard or some other ambiguous vilifying epithet "consign[s] a person, without nice discrimination, to the entire category of villain" (339).  Since Don John cannot help being a bastard, this suggests that his role as a villain is innate; he is intrinsically evil.

If one were to discount the miscellaneous category, however, one would see that villain-types are differentiated primarily based on how obviously they put their treacherous plans into motion.  The "high-visibility" type acts in a manner which is transparent, whereas the "low-visibility" type is most apt to work subtly, perhaps behind-the-scenes to achieve the same ends.  Of course, the problem with categorizing villains in terms of visibility in a fictional setting is that to do so raises the question: whose vision are we discussing?  Is it the characters' or the audience's?

From the perspective of the audience, both Don John's and Satan's deeds are quite transparent, as we see or read about them planning them; it comes as no surprise to us when Don John's gang convinces the men of Messina that Hero has been unfaithful or when the Fall of Man occurs in the narrative.  However, from the point of view of the characters--or at least the relevant ones--these antagonists act in ways which are sneaky and go completely unannounced.  So what is the solution?  Do we simply ignore one perspective, or do we adopt a hybrid approach?

I propose the latter, because in observing these works we have no choice but to engage in both perspectives.  "High-visibility" and "low-visibility" may seem incompatible, but we may take elements from Klapp's groupings to describe Don John and Satan.  First, in terms of the high-visibility, audience-based type, I feel that the descriptor of "monster" fits best: "A bizarre villain whose acts and motivations are beyond the ordinary range of human comprehension and whose stature approaches the demonic" (338).  This is the closest categorization to "pure evil", so it fits for Don John and Satan.

In terms of the low-visibility, in-universe type, there fewer options to choose from.  However, both Don John and Satan would clearly fall under the "deceiver" label, as the pair "puts one over on people through fraud or deception" (338).  Thus, we may consider both villains to be in a category which can be term "monstrous deceivers".  There is no problem of incompatibility here, since one half of the label describes the motives of the villain (evil for evil's sake) while the other half describes the method used (deception).  Both terms describe Shakespeare's and Milton's creations quite well.

Now that we have established how Don John and Satan belong to the same class of treachery, I would like to suggest that similarity between the characters is not merely a coincidence.

Linking Much Ado About Nothing to Paradise Lost

Shakespeare's influence on John Milton has been well documented.  In a compilation of Miltonic allusions to the Bard, Alwin Thaler remarks, "That there are numerous points of contact between Shakspere [sic] and Milton is, to be sure, a matter of common knowledge" (645).  He goes on to argue that if anything, the relationship between the two has been understated in scholarship, and Thaler does his best to list every conceivable connection between the works of Shakespeare and Milton; just about every play credited to Shakespeare is cited.

In addition, one may surmise that Milton may have drawn more than mere inspiration from Shakespeare; there may be an element of reverence.  In the poem "On Shakespeare", originally published anonymously in the second folio of Shakespeare's works, Milton lays out his admiration for the dramatist:

Dear son of memory, great heir of Fame,
What needs't thou such weak witnes of thy name?
Thou in our wonder and astonishment
Hath built thy self a live-long Monument. (lines 5-8)

This poem, and its placement in the Second Folio, is a simple but emotionally powerful justification for reading the Bard into Milton's works.  Quite clearly there was admiration for the playwright on Milton's part.

In reading Much Ado About Nothing and parsing through Don John's declarations, my first thought was, "Hey, this sounds exactly like Satan."  In Act I, Scene 3, Don John has a conversation with one of his followers, Conrad, who pleads that Don John should be thankful, and visibly so, for the relative mercy which Don Pedro showed him.  The bastard, though, will have none of it:

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 a carriage to rob love from any.  In this, though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied that I am a plain-dealing villain. (1.3.24-29)

The opening phrases structure immediately brings to mind Satan's most famous line in Paradise Lost: "Better to reign in hell than to serve in Heaven" (1.263).  Even if Milton didn't use this particular line from Shakespeare as inspiration from Satan (a similar structure is found in Richard III), it would not be surprising if Milton at least had Don John in mind while crafting his epic.

The connections between Don John and Satan go beyond that one line near the beginning of the play.  Both characters are ultimately driven by revenge, and their motivations seem more and more petty as their respective narratives unfold.  They are able to gain the trust of key figures through deception, but their plans ultimately prove futile and justice is carried out.  Most importantly, Don John and Satan are unambiguously evil characters: they are representative of chaos and have no even semi-noble reasons to fight the protagonists.

The similarities between Don John and Satan have not gone completely unnoticed.  Michael Taylor argues that both characters have "a concept of freedom [which] is paradoxically self-denying" (146), using the "canker in a hedge" quip as evidence.  That said, the possible link between the two characters has received very little attention from the academic world; Thaler goes so far as to say that Much Ado About Nothing has absolutely no analogues anywhere in Milton's body of work (688).  Yet I cannot help linking these two villains together.

Nor can I help comparing them, and when I do so, Milton's creation comes out as clearly superior each and every time.  How is it that Milton is able to create a villain so one-dimensional as the devil himself, yet make him so fascinating and compelling, while Shakespeare's same creation barely has enough character to make it through the play?  Let us see.

Grandeur and Eloquence, or, the Making of a Monster

One may initially think that Don John's uninspired role as a villain is a product of the genre of his play.  Much Ado About Nothing, is, after all, a festive comedy, and the genre would seem to dictate an unambiguously happy tone throughout; crafting a compelling villain would detract from the experience.  Paradise Lost, meanwhile, is an epic retelling of the Creation and the Fall of Man.  The villain, Satan, is far more integral to the form of Milton's piece than a similar character would be in Shakespeare's play.

I do not find this explanation satisfying, however.  Many of Shakespeare's comedies featured villains with complex motivations and real menace behind their threats.  Setting aside the blatant, period anti-Semitism, Shylock from The Merchant of Venice is a truly frightening antagonist, and Angelo from Measure for Measure is an excellent character from the "sinner in the position of saint" archetype.  Even restricting the search to festive comedies, I find the bastard Duke Frederick in As You Like It a far better version of the archetype than Don John.  Genre, then, is not the problem.

Scale, however, may be one.  Part of the appeal in watching a monstrous villain of any sort is that they pose a great threat to society.  The dragon wants to burn down the kingdom, the rebel wants to assassinate the president, and so forth.  Sure, for villains to have concrete motivations for their deeds is often a nice touch, but what they have to gain from wreaking such havoc may end up being beside the point.  So long as the audience can see that the monstrous villain's plans will have dire consequences, it can be roped into the drama without much explanation.

This is where Don John and Satan differ the most.  Satan is...well, he is Satan.  From a Christian perspective, he is the embodiment of all that is wrong in the world, and there is an awful lot that is wrong in the world.  On top of that, he is in a perpetual war with God himself, and in Paradise Lost, Satan's goal is to get revenge on God by ruining his most prized creation: man.  Not only is the fate of humanity ultimately at stake, but what amounts to cosmic combat has been raised.  If the reader can't get behind Satan as an entertaining bad guy in this setting, than nothing could achieve that effect.

Whereas Satan's aims are impressively grand, Don John's goals are absurdly small.  I can see why, after just having lost to Don Pedro in battle, he'd not be in the mood to overthrow his brother or something to that effect.  But, despite the romantic comedy storyline, his goal of breaking up the marriage of Claudio and Hero as a means of revenge feels so insignificant that I'm still not sure he wasn't supposed to comic relief.  Hell, when Borachio tells him of the marriage, Don John asks, "Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?" (1.3.40).  He sounds more like a prankster than a menace.

On top of that, the two villains differ in how they present their ideas.  As a character in an epic, Satan gets many monologues and he certainly makes the most of them.  In particular, I've always admired his reaction to seeing the Garden of Eden, contemplating all he gave up when he rebelled against God but ultimately resolving to put his wretched schemes into motion.  It's little wonder that many people, from William Blake on down, believe that Satan is the real hero of Paradise Lost.  His way with words could win most anyone over.

Don John, on the other hand, is not eloquent in the slightest.  He describes himself as being "not of many words," and for once he speaks the truth (1.1.150).  I will admit that my reading is influenced by Keanu Reeves' dull performance in the Kenneth Branagh-directed 1993 film version, but even on paper Don John is not a well-spoken villain; at best, his dialogue is utilitarian: effective in-universe but uninteresting on its own merits.  In fact, the "canker in a hedge" quip is probably the most poetic thing he says in the entire play.

Here, then, I think we can arrive a conclusion.  One-dimensional villains, such as monstrous deceivers, can be compelling, but the trick lies in grandeur.  Classic foes such as Satan have large-scale plots which pose a real threat and present themselves in a captivating manner.  On the other hand, dull one-dimensional villains along the lines of Don John lack these qualities; their schemes are hopelessly small and their demeanor is depressingly uninspired.  Not even the hand of the Bard can rescue such an antagonist. 

Works Cited

 

Kelley, Maurice, ed. Paradise Lost and Other Poems. New York: Walter J. Black,
     1943. Print.

Klapp, Orrin E. "American Villain Types." American Sociological Review 21.3 (1956):
     337-340. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.

Milton, John. "On Shakespeare." Kelley 23.

---. Paradise Lost. Kelley 88-386.

Shakespeare, William. Much Ado About Nothing. Ed. Peter Holland. The Complete
     Pelican Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Orgel and A. R. Braunmuller. New York:
     Penguin, 2002.  Print. 371-400.

Shepherd, J. Albert. "The Self-Revelations of Shakespeare's Villains." The Sewanee
     Review 10.3 (1902): 341-363. JSTOR. Web. 18 Oct. 2012.

Taylor, Michael. "Much Ado about Nothing: The Individual in Society." Essays in
     Criticism 23.3 (1973): 146-153. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Oct. 2012.

Thaler, Alwin. "The Shaksperian Element in Milton." PMLA 40.3 (1925): 645-691.
     JSTOR. Web. 9 Oct. 2012.