Dogberry And The Watch Play Analysis

A somewhat topsy-turvy presentation is evident throughout this play: Dogberry and the Watch are very much the “third string” to this play’s bow, and yet have captured the greatest place in public imagination. Likewise, on the romantic front, we may say that it is the second-bow players who have the next most prominent place in people’s minds; for even though the play is essentially about the love affair between Claudio and Hero (the first string to the bow), many play-goers come away with a clearer memory of, and greater empathy for, Benedick and Beatrice.

Firstly, we should note the high ideals of marriage maintained throughout the play. John Peck and Martin Coyle (“How to study a Shakespeare play”, Macmillan, 1985) state: “Marriage is
Even he can only persuade the father to support his daughter in this way, by reminding him that if his daughter does indeed turn out to be guilty, he can always lock her away as a nun in a convent: “And if it sort not well, you may conceal her, as best befits her wounded reputation, in some reclusive and religious life, out of all eyes, tongues, minds, and injuries”.

Finally, after all this high moral ground, and the high ideal of marriage, we must consider whether Shakespeare allows us a glimpse of another attitude to marriage – the popular one. What we have already read is the strong official line on marriage at the end of the sixteenth century. However, in popular thought it is likely that even four hundred years ago there were mother-in-law jokes, and men slipping out of their houses to join their mates in the ale house and discuss their nagging wives, whilst women gathered in groups to gossip about the many failings of men! This popular culture is hinted at in Balthasar’s comic song:

“Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more.
Men were deceivers ever,
One foot in sea, and one on shore,
To one thing constant never.
Then sigh not so, but let them go,
And be you blithe and bonny,
Converting all your sounds of woe
Into hey nonny,