Sociological Views of Evil in Shakespearean Society

“Company, villainous company, has been the spoil of me.” This quote in William Shakespeare’s play Henry IV (3.3.11) showcases one of the common themes in many of William Shakespeare’s plays: the role of the villain. For any storyline to be interesting, it must have some type of dramatic element that keeps the audience intrigued, and providing a villain to induce evil acts throughout the play often satisfies this component. Just as the concept of evil has been around since the beginning of time, the concept of evil’s true origin has been contemplated for centuries as well. Although there are numerous theories as to the causes of evil, it seems that many of Shakespeare’s villainous characters are cast into that role because of their greed for whatever factor it is that motivates them. However, this view of evil is slightly different than our society’s current perspective of evil. There are many examples of this situation in Shakespearean plays; in Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, Claudius commits his evil acts because of his greed for the throne; in Macbeth, Lady Macbeth is so moved by her greed for wealth and power that she forces her

The one thing that each of these plays written by Shakespeare possess is a villain motivated by greed to do unspeakable evil acts. However, since there is no apparent cause for the greed itself, then the mere act of being greedy is said to be an inherent trait that each character has within their personality. Therefore it can be said that in Shakespearean society, since evilness was a product of the innate human sin of greed, then evilness itself was also inherent to a person’s nature. This holds a slightly different view today than it did four hundred years ago when these plays were being produced. Even in our own society, regardless of the thousands of advancements made since Shakespeare’s time, we are confronted with the notions of greed and evil everyday. As such, our society has contributed dozens of theories as to the meaning and origin of evil in human kind as we know it. In the field of psychology, there is a hypothesis known as the “Nature Versus Nurture” theory (Berger p53) that theorizes human’s behavior as a combination of a person’s past experiences, the natural traits they inherit and the environment in which a person interacts with others. Today, we use this theory to describe many human behaviors, especially when discussing the causes of good and evil in our society. The most common conclusion of our society is that humans are not born completely “good” or “bad,” but the experiences that occur throughout their lifetime mold and shape the character of the person into one capable of harboring good, and likewise evil will. (Berger p67) In Shakespeare’s time, evil was not only inherent, but it was also a tragic flaw that was thought would eventually consume the lives of those involved, while today’s society has a much more liberal view of the idea of “evil.” Despite these two different views on this issue, there is one issue that is a common factor. That factor is the belief that there is evil in the world, whether it is an in-born trait or a characteristic developed over time; and this is one element is what unites our society to the society described in Shakespearean plays.

And we’ll not fail… When in swinish sleep

And by how much she strives to do h

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