The Vice

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The Vice or Vice Character is a main character of the medieval morality plays. It can be an allegoric representation of one of the Seven Vices or a more general portrayal of evil as the tempter of man. The Vice often takes the audience into complicity by revealing its evil plans, often through soliloquys or monologues. Its enacting is frequently comic or absurd.

The word is derived from Latin vitium "defect, offense, blemish, imperfection," in both physical and moral senses.

The Vice developed into the villain in renaissance theatre. Richard III in Shakespeares drama of the same name links himself with the Vice when he declares: “Thus like the formal Vice, Iniquity, / I moralize two meanings in one word” (III.i.82–83).