Idle speculation for a Saturday — if John McCain were a Shakespearean character, which would he be?
I began to wonder after reading “The Making (and Remaking) of McCain” by Robert Draper. In this narrative, the once-honorable hero listens to the bad advice of others and comes to a tragic end. It reminds me a bit of Brutus in Julius Caesar, who was persuaded to go along with the assassination of Caesar for the good of Rome, only to see all his good intentions come to ruin. But that’s not exactly right.
Then there’s Hamlet, who was charged with avenging his father in the first act but spent the entire play working up the nerve to do the job. In his anxiety and indecision he drove his girlfriend to suicide and accidentally killed her father — not to mention what happened to poor old Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. I see a touch of Hamlet in McCain, who is stumbling around from one contrived theme to another instead of engaging in a straightforward, honest campaign.
Then there’s Macbeth, who began the play as a military hero but who was easily corrupted by ambition. And crazy King Lear who trusted the wrong daughters. But maybe he was twisted old Richard III all along, and we just didn’t notice.
“Stumbling around” got me thinking, then I thought of the donkey’s head: Bottom, of course!
Ha, yes, Bottom! He does seem to be under a spell these days.
He lacks the mental energy to be Hamlet or Richard III. In any case, I don’t see him as the main character; he’s a sideshow even in his own campaign. Polonius, Falstaff in Merry Wives, Edmund the envious bastard in Lear, someone like that. Bottom will suffice.
Queen Gertrude of Denmark, Hamlet
One wishes McCain would assume a virtue;
clearly he no longer has any.
Somehow, the word “Shakespearean” just never popped into my mind when thinking about John McCain. I always think of the bar scene from the original Star Wars and try to identify his closest match.
I don’t know Shakespeare very well, but the character that comes to my mind for McCain is Joe Bftsplk, the hapless guy in Lil’ Abner with the perpetual cloud over his head.
From selecting sexy, loony Sarah who became his boat anchor, to his brother Joe who gets into trouble for calling 911 to complain about traffic, McCain’s is one of the worst campaigns ever. Married to a beer baroness, the whole careening mess would be a great subject for an Oliver Stone movie.
The Roman military hero Titus Andronicus (the oldest of the tragedies) who steps aside to allow a feckless heir to become emperor of Rome and ends up joining with the Goths he has fought in a mad round of slashing revenge that involves throat cutting, decapitation, mutilation, and even baking up corpses of her sons for the queen’s dinner as he proudly goes down to bloody defeat.
Then again, Aaron the Moor doesn’t come out of it too well either.
I don’t know Shakespeare’s writings well enough to to draw similarities to McCain to any of Shakespeare’s characters. But I can see similarities in the personal traits of McCain to the writings and tales of Giacomo Casanova.
Both boasted of a strong desire for the delights of the female flesh, and made claims to innumerable conquests achieved as a result of their charms. Both had a propensity for gambling and a self satisfying pride in their ability to beat the odds. Both were prisoners. And both embellished their achievements, and both had no difficulty in enjoying the benefits of a relationship with wealthy women.
Of the two of them, I think Giacomo had a higher degree of intellectual capacity and a higher standard of personal honesty.
Well, if we have to go Shakespearean, I vote Coriolanus– the aristocratic warrior who is forced to ally himself with his formerly sworn enemies.
But really,it would take one of Moliere’s plays to do him justice. In the vein of “The Miser,” “The Misanthrope,” and “The Imaginary Invalid,” it could be “The Impetuous.”
“Then there’s Hamlet, who was charged with avenging his father in the first act but spent the entire play working up the nerve to do the job. In his anxiety and indecision he drove his girlfriend to suicide and accidentally killed her father — not to mention what happened to poor old Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”
That sounds too much like Bush and Iraq.
Macbeth and Coriolanus (without the honor). I assume you saw the Colbert segment along these lines? They picked Macbeth for McCain and Hamlet for Obama.
(I actually wrote a post on Lear and the Bushies last year… )
I assume you saw the Colbert segment along these lines?
No, I did not. Colbert is on way too late for me to watch. Nothing against him, but I haven’t seen any of the Colbert Report in months. I don’t believe I’ve ever watched an entire program all the way through, in fact. I just can’t stay up past midnight and function the next day.
I just got an error saying I couldn’t comment–do I need something special in order to do so?
Hmm, weird! Anyway: Maha, you can stream both The Daily Show and The Colbert Report online the next day. You can find the episodes on their Comedy Central sites, or on Hulu.com. They’re both free; Hulu has very brief ads that the CC sites do not. It’s the only way to keep up with them without turning into a sleep-deprived zombie, IMO!
Alto2, I had the same thing happen a couple of days ago with the error message popping up. First, I opened another window and checked to make sure my post didn’t go through anyway. Then I went back to the first window, backed up and my comment was still in the submit comment window and so I tried again. This time it worked.
Here’s the Colbert segment I mentioned. I often watch TDS and Colbert the next day online, which can be more convenient, as alto2 mentions. You can see highlights or the full shows.
(Oh, and here’s that older Bush-Lear piece. I’m reading Angler right now, so I’ve been thinking more on Cheney, who reminds me of Richelieu and a number of villains both historical and fictional. For Cheney, comparisons from Shakespeare work (Leontes), but Orwell and Kafka seem even more appropriate.)
Thanks, Craig. It just did it again, though when I backed up, the comment block was empty. Seems odd, but I’m at least glad I didn’t lose a long comment!