Sunday, March 14, 2010

Compare Don John (Much Ado About Nothing) and Lady Macbeth (Macbeth) as villians.

Lady Macbeth is a somewhat more complex villain than Don John for several reasons.  Macbeth is a tragedy and Much Ado About Nothing is not.  Much Ado is a comedy, and it does not require complicated dastardly motivations that speak volumes about human nature.  Don John's role is quite a small one because he is only really needed to instigate the conflict, and then he can disappear.  Macbeth, on the other hand, features characters, in general, who are a great deal more nuanced than Don John is, including Lady Macbeth.  She changes throughout the play, beginning as a woman who wishes to be utterly ruthless and remorseless, but by the play's end, she is devastated by her guilt and regret (so much so that she eventually takes her own life).  At the same time, however, Lady Macbeth's role is a relatively small one (compared to other characters in Macbeth) after Act 2 because she really serves as a yardstick (or a foil) by which the audience can measure how terrible Macbeth, himself, becomes.  

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