How Does Shakespeare Create A Sophisticated Villain

Creating the Sophisticated Villain: tracking the shifts from melodrama to realistic villainy in Titus Andronicus and The Merchant of Venice.
Creating a refined character with a subtle but poignant arc, whose goals and actions are realistically motivated is not an easy task. It is far simpler to appoint “good” and “evil” characteristics onto a character and call it day. Although Shakespeare in his plays was never as blunt as “you are good and you are evil”, one can see how his villainous characters (and protagonists as well) developed more subtlety while he perfected his craft. Today we will examine how the select implementation of visceral imagery, the use of clever linguistic structuring, and the use of realistic conclusions makes villains
Firstly, note the emphasis on the body. This motif appears regularly in Titus Andronicus. By focusing on the flesh, the audience is guided away from the subtler aspects of mental turmoil that will categorize his later plays. Physical pain is visceral and understandable by all audience members; therefore, it is easy to create a villain by exploiting the human tendency to empathize with those in physical
In The Merchant of Venice, Shylock asks for a pound of flesh as payment for a debt. What he does not do however is ask for a series of long and drawn out torturous elements. The term “pound of flesh” is the extent to which the imagery is used, but its repetition in unwavering form is what creates this sense of dread. It is enough to bring about an emotional reaction from the audience but not enough to detract from the more villainous aspects of his character, which are drawn not from melodramatic emotions but through Shylock’s scheming and calculative nature. These more phycological villainous tendencies are a characteristic of Shakespeare’s growth as a writer and are paralleled by the use of clever shifts in language structure as well as word choice. Examine here the shift in structure at Antonio’s