Don John is not one of Shakespeare’s most famous villains. He lacks the memorable malice of an Iago, or the demonic drive of a Richard II. This is probably because Don John finds himself in a tricky role: he’s the villain in a marriage comedy. Whatever he does, it’s not going to prevent the eventual joining of hearts and hands. To be fair, though, he’s not just a cipher in the plot, but quite a revealing minor character.
Unlike Egeus (in A Midsummer Night’s Dream), Don John isn’t the father or guardian of any of the characters, so Shakespeare has to provide him with a particular motive for raising havoc. (Apart from the fact that if he didn’t, there probably wouldn’t be much of a plot.) After his aloof reply to Leonato’s greeting in the first scene of the play (“I thank you; I am not of many words, but I thank you.”), he is given a speech to explain himself in III.3. Conrade asks “Why are you thus out of measure sad?”, and advises his master to hide his discontent.
Don John’s reply declares that “I am trusted with a muzzle and enfranchised with a clog”, in other words that he finds it irksome being part of his brother’s entourage. To his servant’s advice to be more pleasant towards Don Pedro, he answers “I cannot hide what I am; I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jest;” He demands that Conrade accept this attitude: “let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.”, and boasts “though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man, it must not be denied but I am plain-dealing villain.”
In a modern play, one might well understand the sourness that arises from being a younger brother in a family like Don John’s. But I don’t think Shakespeare is trying to awaken our sympathies for the plight of disenfranchised aristocratic youths: Don John is not a deep enough character to maintain such a reading. Nor can we take seriously the suggestion that he tries to wreck Claudio’s marriage for his own gain: on hearing that there is any engagement in the group, he asks “Will it serve for any model to build mischief on?” (III.3) without even knowing who is to be married.
A key to Don John’s character might be found in Conrade’s question: “Why are you thus out of measure sad?” The phrase “out of measure” here implies, I think, more than just “too much”. A “measure” is a resonant word; it could be a dance, a cup of wine, or a proper proportion of something. Before Don John has spoken more than one line, we are already told that he is somehow “out of step” with the festivities going on around him.
His discontent with his brother is also “out of measure”, since it cuts across what the dominant Renaissance ideology would have seen as the proper relationship between family members, part of the larger network of relationships which took in nobility, royalty and God. Of course these “proper” family relationships are re-established at the end of the comedy, with the marriages and the intended punishment of Don John.
Don John acts almost as a symbol of human perversity, and the discontent that disrupts the order of the world, whether that is the grumpy man at a dance, or the rebellious member of an aristocratic household. Kenneth Branagh’s film version of Much Ado About Nothing actually visually marked Don John out from the other members of the retinue, by putting him and his retainers in black trousers rather than the blue which the other men wore. Of course such marking out might make us wonder whether he is less a character, and more a scapegoat...
Jem Bloomfield - Jem Bloomfield was educated at the universities of Oxford and Exeter, and is currently working on a PhD on Webster's revenge tragedy "The ...
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