Sunday, June 26, 2011

Why would Shakespeare create a character like Don Pedro in his comedy about romantic misunderstandings, "Much Ado About Nothing"?

Because Shakespeare doesn't believe in sticking rigidly to "genre". This is the man who wrote a comedy about a Jew, just like Marlowe's "The Jew of Malta", but filled his Jewish character with bitter, angry humanity, which led to despicable deeds, so that his audience didn't know whether to hate him or to sympathise with him: that's Shylock, in "The Merchant of Venice". This is the man who took an old comedy with a happy ending, "King Leir", and turned it into a bleak, violent, nihilistic tragedy with one of the most heartrending denouements in all of drama.


And into his comedy of misunderstandings, where all the fuss is "about Nothing", Shakespeare inserts all sorts of problematic characters. I won't go into Don John, a really dark, ominous and troubling characters. I won't detail the bloodcurdling curses Leonato makes to his daughter when he thinks she is a whore. I won't go into the way callow Claudio believes (on very little evidence) the charges against his loyal wife.


Don Pedro is a bit of a problem, I think. For a start, he seems to be "friendly" towards Claudio in an incredibly passionate and committed sort of way:



My love is thine to teach. Teach it but how,
And thou shalt see how apt it is to learn
Any hard lesson that may do thee good.



He makes a sad sort of botched proposal at the party to Beatrice, who rejects it out of hand. And at the end, he's left with no wife at all. Benedick shouts to him, just before the end,



Prince, thou art sad. Get thee a wife, get thee a wife!



And he doesn't respond. Make of that what you will!


Hope it helps!

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