Dogberry and the watch — Edexcel GCSE English Literature 1ET0
Edexcel GCSE English Literature · 1ET0
Dogberry and the watch
Characters
What you need to know
How Shakespeare presents Dogberry and the watch, and how the character develops across the text: the self-important constable whose muddled words nearly hide the truth his men uncover.
The key quotations for this character and how to analyse them, with the context that shapes them.
How to use the lesson's key quotations in an essay, with a short worked paragraph.
Key quotations: 'You are thought here to be the most senseless and fit man for the constable of the watch', 'you shall comprehend all vagrom men', 'they that touch pitch will be defiled', 'our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended two aspicious persons', 'we are the poor duke's officers', 'Is our whole dissembly appeared?', 'thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption for this', 'I am a wise fellow, and, which is more, an officer, and, which is more, a householder', 'remember that I am an ass', 'they have committed false report'.
Structure: the fools who misunderstand everything uncover the truth, and their comedy tells the audience that Hero will be saved.
Context: malapropisms, Elizabethan amateur constables and the night watch, and the part written for the comic actor William Kempe.
Edexcel's Shakespeare question has two parts: part (a) on the printed extract marks only language, form and structure (AO2), so context earns nothing there; part (b) on the play elsewhere, from memory, marks the argument and its references (AO1, 15 marks) and context (AO3, 5 marks), not language analysis. Say which part each worked paragraph and exam tip is for.
