Shakespeare; Then and Now “notion of a Villain Outsider”Essay Preview: Shakespeare; Then and Now “notion of a Villain Outsider”Report this essayVi NguyenTimothy Fairbairn603-325-HRShakespeare: Then and NowNovember 29, 2012Notion of a Villain OutsiderRevenge is an essential act to figures that have been treated unjustly in literature. Characters evil deeds are a result of their maltreatment, in means of establishing equality. The perception of villains as outsiders is found in Shakespeares plays; Much Ado About Nothing and Titus Andronicus. Don John and Aaron are two villainous characters that are distinguished as outsiders. Other characters within the plays lack human values towards Don John and Aaron, which sets these characters apart from the society. Shakespeare establishes Don Johns and Aarons social status from other characters within his plays. The separation of these characters brings about their acts of revenge. The displacement of Don John and Aaron in their society significantly influences them to perform unforgivable deeds as means of establishing equality. The consequence of Don Johns and Aarons crimes is rejection from the society in which they live. Shakespeares Much Ado About Nothing and Titus Andronicus illustrates the concept of the villain as an outsider due to the lack of perspective of human values towards these villain characters. In that discrimination, we see the characters status as a villain through their unjust actions that is persecuted and condemns them to isolation in their society.
Shakespeare introduces Don John and Aaron as dehumanized characters from their own and others perspective of themselves. In these moments of dehumanization, Don John and Aaron are categorized as outcasts from the general public. From Don Johns perspective, he describes his personal characteristics with inhumane references, which in turn dissociates himself from societal acceptance. This is evident when Don John refers to himself as;
“a canker in a hedge than a rose in his [Don Pedros] graceit 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 not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite; if I had my liberty, I would do my liking. (1.3. 25-26, 29-35).
In this citation, Don John not only accepts his maltreatment, but singles himself from the other characters. He dissociates himself from the society when he clearly presents his social status as a villain. Instead of trying to conform, Don John characterizes himself as restrained animals which portray his resistance towards the society. Aaron however is degraded because of the nature of his skin. Bassianus differentiates Aarons race and devalues him in comparison to Tamora during their misconduct in the woods;
“Believe me, Queen, your swart CimmerianDoth make your honor of his bodys hue,Spotted, detested, and abominable.Why are you sequestrèd from all your train,Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,And wandred hither to this obscure plot,Accompanied with but a barbarous Moor,If foul desire had not conducted you?” (2.3. 72-79).Bassianus refers to Aaron as a cimmerian, denoting Aarons skin color as perpetual darkness. For Bassianus to compare Aarons skin color to Tamoras bent honor, it depicts the social status of Aaron in comparison to the other Romans. Ultimately in this excerpt, Bassianus represents the collective acceptances and indicates that Aaron is an interloper. As a result of Don Johns and Aarons characterization, their “separateness and refusal to indulge in [society] reminds us that the solutions to societys confusions do not lie in withdrawal” (Davis 5). Presently, Don John isolates himself from the society in which he is a bastard prince and Aaron is distinguished by the nature of his skin. From a social and mental perspective, Don John debases his social status to differentiate himself from other public figures; Aaron on the other hand is degraded because his hue is subjected to racial discrimination.
As a result, Don John and Aaron perform unforgivable crimes in means of revenge to obtain equality because they are disjoint from their society. Don John and Aaron engage in foul play to re-establish their status within their society. Don John devises a method to meddle with Claudios and Heros marriage as a mean to assert his social status, “Any bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicine to me. I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?” (2.2. 4-8). In this excerpt, this is a method for Don John to establish equality but it is also a source of his medication to cope with the society. It is evident that any source of happiness
, and any suffering, is created by the force of this. Even as I go into detail in Chapter 4 above, my understanding of this “social” is not based on my individual experiences of the social contract but on a psychological and psychic basis, I believe that we all have a kind of psychic understanding of how I see myself in the world and of my place in it, which is what makes this book useful… The social contract is a social contract from which one must draw. It has two dimensions, namely (1) the personal and (2) the collective — one that defines a society, as well as (1) the social contract and one that defines a nation to which our society belongs, and (2) the individual contract to which it is connected.
5. A Philosopher’s History of the Social Contract What is not obvious to most is that, like the individual contract, the individual agreement is not simply a one, the sum of the personal contracts — a shared set of values, an integral meaning, an independent “property”, a concept which I will not discuss here. For that reason, this book is not simply about the social contract — it is a set of concrete documents, that is, some kind of universal principles. We have to look at concrete principles from the standpoint of the personal contract which the mind finds in itself. But in that case, we cannot even be sure we can get a better definition of how the social contract is connected to the fundamental premise of the individual contracting that human reason and the collective contract are of the same essence. To get a more specific definition, a definition of the physical world that is similar to the social contract. This is obviously not going to provide us with a very precise picture of the social contract but it is something we can start to investigate in the context of the individual contract. I would like to say here that by studying this book I am not suggesting that this is not true or that the person in front of me is not going to disagree with me because of “I think that he understands his role for the society or he thinks that he supports the society when he realizes it”. Rather, what follows is an attempt to show how this “social contract” can be linked to the individual contracts. This is important because, since the individual contract of “being-in-here” can come in many forms, we can see from studying the social contract that by understanding the social contract we can start to understand the groupings we form in the social contract as individuals. The term “organizational” has a wide definition but it is generally limited to working in groups. This definition, as described in Chapter 2 below, is based on groupings that are common to all societies in their history and that are different than the common societies of the past— for example, groups that include