What is a Villain?

As Rebecca mentioned in her blog post, I too have contemplated the idea of the Duke being the villain in this story, rather than Angelo. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, a villain is a character who does bad things, evil things. If this is the case, there would be multiple villains in this story, and every story for that matter. I believe that a villain is someone who purposely does bad things, manipulates people simply for the pleasure of it and perhaps for some gain in power. With this definition, it is easy to see Angelo as the devil. Angelo was given the power of the Duke, and abused his power, simply because he thought he could (why not right? The Duke said he’s in charge of everything). Angelo enforced rules that the Duke had not, but he also made up some of his own (unless it’s apparently a law for an adulterer’s sister to sleep with the man in charge to save her brother’s life, but that seems a bit crazy to me). Anyway, I think Angelo is an evil person and a villain, by my definition of a villain.

                  If I were to judge the Duke’s status as a villain by the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition as well, he too would be a villain, but I no longer think he is. It is unclear what the Duke’s motifs were in the first place for leaving (maybe because he was terrible at his job, maybe he was afraid of having so much power, or maybe he secretly, maliciously wanted to see someone tear the land apart so everyone would hate the new man in power and not pay attention to the Duke’s lack of enforcing laws and doing poorly at his job). Although there are many possibilities, I have a hard time believing that the Duke was plotting for the land to fall apart. It seems much more logical to me that the Duke was having trouble enforcing laws, because his own personal morals were not the exact same as the laws; so, the Duke thought perhaps putting someone else in power would help laws be enforced, and he wouldn’t have to feel guilty about it because he was not enforcing the laws himself. Regardless of the Duke’s motifs, his actions do not mirror those of a villain (yes, maybe he was a bit entertained by the chaos, but who wouldn’t be?).