The motif of the soldier returning from war itself returns throughout Shakespeare’s plays. Tragedies like Richard III, Othello and Macbeth use the delicate moment of homecoming as the starting point for violent escalation, and when a post-war plot follows the comedy pattern, as in Much Ado About Nothing, the reintegration of the returnee retains a destructive dimension. Shakespeare’s late tragedy Coriolanus asks what happens when the returnee cannot be reintegrated into the civil society he defended in war and ultimately turns against his home.