MUCH
ADO ABOUT NOTHING
CHARACTER
ANALYSIS: HERO
Hero’s personality
Hero is Leonato’s daughter. She is beautiful and young. She is obedient and always follows her father’s instructions. Hero and her father live together with Hero’s cousin, Beatrice in Messina. Hero will be the heir of all her father’s fortune and she falls in love with Claudio, one of Don Pedro’ soldiers.
Due to her role, she will be linked to most of the important topics and characters of this play.
First of all we are going to analyse the physical and psychological aspects of the character. She is young, beautiful, kind, quiet and obedient. She does not even dare to say a word without her father’s agreement. We do not find in the text any reference or information about Hero’s mother. She is only mentioned once in a joke at the beginning of the play but we cannot grasp any information of where she is now or what has happened to her. ‘DON PEDRO You embrace your charge too willingly. I think this is your daughter.’ ‘LEONATO Her mother hath many times told me so.’[1] We could imagine that may be her mother has already. So, we find here a father bringing up her daughter into a real lady and a daughter that completely obeys her father’s instructions and decisions. With that behaviour Hero is showing her love and respect to her father.
When the characters mention her they call her in different ways, for instance, beautiful, young woman, who is dark-haired, small, modest young lady, the sweetest lady and is also described as a ‘jewel’ by Claudio. All these characteristics are absolutely positive and reveal us the opinion they have about Hero.
Hero’s personality is contrasted with her cousin’s along Much Ado About Nothing. Hero’s cousin is called Beatrice. She is not as young as Hero, but she is also beautiful and kind, nevertheless, she is self-confident and always has witty speeches, especially with Benedick. She is completely in love with Benedick, but she is a strong woman and she would not confess her feelings straight away. Beatrice is Hero’s female voice and her major female influence. So big is her influence that Hero will let Beatrice talk always that they are together. As an example of the influence of her cousin, we can see in Act 1 Scene 1 that Hero only emits one single sentence ‘my cousin means Signior Benedick of Padua’ (Act 1 scene 1)[2] whereas her cousin speaks in the vast majority of the act with her witty language.
Another example of that is found also in the first scene. There we can already see that our character, Hero, will not say what she is thinking about, she will wait until someone says it for her, the majority of the time is Beatrice who speaks for her. For example, in this first act scene 1, she could not even dream of pronouncing a word about Benedick’s companions, is her extrovert cousin who asks for him because she knows Hero would like to know about that. ‘Beatrice: But, I pray you who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?’ (Act 1 scene1)[3]
The play is packed with words said by Beatrice instead of being said by Hero. There is also another relevant scene where Hero does not react, but she simply waits someone to do it for her. In her wedding day she is accused of being unfaithful to Claudio, but she is not able either to prove her innocence or to answer back. She only blushes and only talks when she is asked. Instead of answering back trying to find out the reason of that chaos, she just asks for God’s help. HERO ‘True! O God!’, ‘O, God defend me! how am I beset! What kind of catechising call you this?’(act IV scene I)[4]
When Hero and Beatrice are together, our character is weaker and she will find protection under Beatrice’s cover. However, we should not consider Hero as a complete fool. She also proves to be clever and witty when she thought a great plan to trick Beatrice and convince her of Benedick’s love.[5]
HERO
Now, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,
As we do trace this alley up and down,
Our talk must only be of Benedick.
When I do name him, let it be thy part
To praise him more than ever man did merit:
My talk to thee must be how Benedick
Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter
Is little Cupid's crafty arrow made,
That only wounds by hearsay. (Act 3. scene 1)[6]
Although these two women are completely different, they get on well together and help each other, nevertheless, Beatrice has a character that is not quite normal for a woman at that time, may be that is what makes her more interesting. Her humour and shrewd fascinates the audience and readers. On the other hand Hero considered not as popular as Beatrice because of her passiveness and her insecurity. [7]
Beatrice probably replaces Hero’s mother gap in a way. In spite of her treat is not maternal, she plays the role of her older sister. Beatrice will feel responsible of Hero and always will protect her against anyone. We know how far she can reach for her cousin when Hero is accused of being unfaithful in front of everyone. She asks Benedick to kill Claudio to save her cousin’s humiliation and she knows how to do it in order to achieve her aims.
BENEDICK
Come, bid me do
any thing for thee.
BEATRICE
BENEDICK
BEATRICE
You kill me to
deny it. Farewell.[8]
Hero has a good relation with women’s of Messina, especially with Ursula. Both women trick Beatrice in order to put together Beatrice and Bendick. Hero trust Ursula and considers her as a friend. But the one who gives her advises and knows all what is happening is her cousin Beatrice.
However, as in all stories we find a woman who betrays her mistress or master, in this case we find Margaret. She helps to develop Don John’s plan probably because she does not like Hero or just for fun.
Another important aspect related to Hero’s character is the
idea of presenting a false face to the world. Hero is considered as an angel
for everyone, but Claudio, after the Don John’s trick sees her as an evil
creature.
During the story Hero goes through a complete cycle of
life: she is young and innocent at the beginning but she is accused of being
unfaithful. Then she dies and all the sins and malign ideas die with her and
finally she reborn as a happy innocent girl once again.
This is very typical of Shakespeare. He is trying to show us that nobody seems what it looks like. [9]
Love at first sight
An interesting point to talk about is the famous convention of ‘love at first sight’ because our character, together with Claudio, has been chosen by Shakespeare to represent this convention.
Love at first sight is described as an
emotional condition whereby a person feels romantic attraction for a stranger on
the first encounter with the stranger. The term may be used to refer to a mere
sexual attraction or crush, but it usually refers to actually falling in love
with some on literally the very first time one sees him or her, along with the
deep desire to have an intimate relationship with that person. Sometimes two
people experience this phenomenon towards each other at the same time, usually
when their eyes meet. [10]
This convention is common in Shakespeare’s plays and time. We find scenes where two people came across and fall in love as in Romeo and Juliet[11]. And that is what happens with Hero, she falls in love automatically when she sees Claudio, and vice versa. Their eyes meet and it seems as if they know each other before. They are just their second half.
The relationship
between Hero and Claudio will sound strange for us nowadays because they almost
got married without talking to each other. In Act 1 scene 1 Hero and Claudio
meet but they do not speak, but the visual contact they have is interpreted as love
at first sight. They would not mention a word, but after that silent meeting,
Claudio will ask to his friends for Hero ‘CLAUDIO Benedick, didst thou note
the daughter of Signior Leonato?’ [12]and
that is part of the ritual of this convention. They would try to get
information from the other through their friends and family.
Hero’s reaction is classical one after the love at first
sight. She is shy but she wants to show Claudio what she is feeling, and that
is why she will be whispering and laughing in small groups always composed by
women. They would do that close to men in order to be noticed. Or she will keep
her visual contact with Claudio more than in a normal situation. She will not
mention a word but she will throw her silent love arrows towards Claudio.
Claudio also is protected and guided by Don Pedro. He
always tells his soldier what he has to do or thing, the same as Leonato does
with Hero. Claudio needs Don Pedro’s opinion for everything; he asks his master
about Hero’ situation in the first act, he could not go one step forward
without the agreement and protection of Don Pedro. [13]He
is so influenced by his master that he drifts away his love for Hero in order
to keep honour when they so Borachio and ‘Hero’ (Margaret) wooing at Hero’s
window. Don Pedro makes he think that his honour is more important than love.
May be he would not have reacted as he did in the wedding day if he had not
been influenced by Don Pedro’s ideas of honour. He was overcome with people’s
opinion, and the same happens with Hero. She is completely influenced by
everyone up to the point that she becomes dumb.
Marriage
In Much Ado About
Nothing, we find love related to marriage,
nevertheless, at that time that does not always go together. We know that
during many years, marriages where a contract previously talked and arranged by
the patriarchal figure of each family. Love was not important, but money.
Parents always wanted to marry their children to a good, meaning rich, person,
meaning wealthy family. Do you marry up
or you marry down?[14]
Obviously rich people wanted a wealthy family to make the union, the same as a
poor or middle class family desired to establish links with high classes.
In Much Ado About
Nothing, Leonato knows how is he economically and wants to show off to the
soldiers in order to find the best husband for her daughter. He does not care
who will be his future son-in-law or if her daughter will be in love with him,
obviously he will prefer the most named and known. In this contract women had
nothing to say, but to obey the patriarchal structure at the time. ‘LEONATO Daughter, remember what I told you: if
the prince do solicit you in that kind,
you know your answer.’[15]
(act 1 scene1). But one male figure is not enough, Shakespeare
introduces a second male figure in order to reinforce the importance of the
message of what her father is saying. ‘ANTONIO [To HERO] Well, niece, I trust you will be
ruled by your father.’ So,
she has no choice, but to obey. [16]
As we can see in the text, there is not any answer from Hero,
probably she just nodded, but we find Beatrice’s reaction mocking about that
situation and that patriarchal structure. Once again we come across a situation
were both cousins are together. Automatically Hero goes one step behind
Beatrice and her cousin represents Hero, meanwhile she is silent and becomes
weaker and insignificant.
While Leonato waits until some movement is made, Don Pedro
and Claudio plan a strategy to impress Hero’s father. Benedick and Claudio do
not belong to the high social class as Don Pedro does, that is why they need
help to obtain Leonato’s acceptance to marry Hero.
DON PEDRO
Thou wilt be like a lover presently
And tire the hearer with a book of words.
If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,
And I will break with her and with her father,
And thou shalt have her. Was't not to this end
That thou began'st to twist so fine a story?
…
I will assume thy part in some disguise
And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,
And in her bosom I'll unclasp my heart
And take her hearing prisoner with the force
And strong encounter of my amorous tale:
Then after to her father will I break;
And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.
In practise let us put it presently.[17]
Don Pedro is going to help Claudio to get married up with Hero,
that is why we hear commentaries about that along the play addressed to him,
because if he gets married to Hero, he will get a good match: ‘DON PEDRO No child but Hero; she's his only heir.’ (act
1 scene 1). [18]Obviously
Claudio has in mind money, but he is completely in love with Hero and that it
is what he wants to obtain, nevertheless, people surrounding him seem to not
see the love that has appeared between this young couple and encourages him to
marry to her because she is a good match. ‘CLAUDIO
Can the world buy such a jewel? BENEDICK
Yea, and a case to put it into.’ [19]Claudio
is just dreaming aloud about Hero and her beauty and Benedick is obviously
talking about her heritance.
In this case, Hero has been lucky because she falls in love
with the one her father has assigned, Claudio, but in the vast majority of the
cases at that time women had not that luck, as in ‘the Taming of the shrew’,
where Catherine, the protagonist does not love his future husband. In fact, at
that time nobody cared much about love.[20]
Rebirth
We could say
Hero has the most dramatic role in this play because she dies and normally in a
comedy nobody dies unless it has a reason, for instance to rebirth.
In Much Ado About Nothing and in all Shakespeare’s comedies we find a conflict. Here the characters of the play fall in the trick that Don John prepares in order to bring the chaos to Messina. He plans a Machiavellian strategy so as to Claudio rejects Hero as a wife. The conflict begins when Claudio sees Margaret and Borachio in Hero’s window wooing and through John’s evil words and with a fit of rage, Claudio thinks that the woman he sees is Hero and not Margaret. That leads into a great chaos and that has horrible repercussions on Hero. In the wedding day Claudio denies marring Hero, and accuses her of being unfaithful.
Here we reach a critic point in the play and many different feelings and words are expressed by the inhabitants and guests of Messina.
Hero, after being accused of infidelity, does not know what to say or reply, she knows she was not unfaithful but she seems to do not care about what had happened or if that chaos was a trick. She just listens and blushes all the things her father told her. She never loses her temper or shout, she just faints letting the rest think for her.
Hero’s father, Leonato, seems to be the most affected in that situation. At first, he things Claudio is joking but in fact he has realised that something is wrong but he could not permit public shame.
FRIAR
FRANCIS
You come hither,
my lord, to marry this lady.
CLAUDIO
LEONATO
To be married to
her: friar, you come to marry her.[21]
But when Claudio answers back, Leonato begins to investigate what is the reason of that behaviour. He could not consent either her daughter being humiliated like that or his own name. He is really upset and does not want to break the good links between Don Pedro and the rest of his men.
CLAUDIO
Not to be married,
Not to knit my soul to an approved wanton.
LEONATO
Dear my lord, if you, in your own proof,
Have vanquish'd the resistance of her youth,
And made defeat of her virginity,--
…
DON
PEDRO
What should I speak?
I stand dishonour'd, that have gone about
To link my dear friend to a common stale.[22]
Friar Francis, Beatrice and Benedick never lose their faith
in Hero’s innocence, that is why Friar Francis comes with the plan to feign
Hero’s death to prove her innocence and faithfulness to Claudio. At first
Leonato does not believe Hero, but in order to maintain his and her reputation
that supposed unfaithfulness must be a lie. So, Leonato agrees the plan as
well. ‘LEONATO Do not live, Hero; do not ope thine eyes:
For, did I think thou wouldst not quickly die, Thought I thy spirits were
stronger than thy shames, Myself would, on the rearward of reproaches, Strike
at thy life. Grieved I, I had but one?’[23]
Claudio at that moment could not see the reality because he is completely blind thinking in what he had seen the previous night. For one moment we think Claudio does not love Hero because of his severe words and accusations, but when he is told that all was a Machiavellian trick planned by Don John, he is regretted of his action, and yet it was too late to correct the error because Hero has already died. Is then when we see that Claudio is really in love with Hero and that she is really regret, that’s why he accepts Leonato’s proposal of marring to Hero’s cousin.
CLAUDIO
I know not how to
pray your patience;
Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself;
Impose me to what penance your invention
Can lay upon my sin: yet sinn'd I not
But in mistaking.
LEONATO
I cannot bid you
bid my daughter live;
That were impossible: but, I pray you both,
Possess the people in Messina here
How innocent she died; and if your love
Can labour ought in sad invention,[24]
Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb
And sing it to her bones, sing it to-night:
To-morrow morning come you to my house,
And since you could not be my son-in-law,
Be yet my nephew: my brother hath a daughter,
Almost the copy of my child that's dead,
And she alone is heir to both of us:
Give her the right you should have given her cousin,
And so dies my revenge.
In the wedding’s day, Hero covers her face with a veil in
order not be seen by Claudio. The moment he unmasks her future wife the
happiness comes back to Messina. Hero had died in order to rebirth as a pure
and innocent woman. She is cannot be anymore accused because the new Hero is
completely pure, as it was before, but it’s a way to avoid problems. She is
just as a phoenix.
With this event, all are put two and two together and all
the conflicts vanish. Claudio and Hero are happily married, the same as
Beatrice and Benedick. Leonato and his family maintain their reputation and relations
and possessions are extended.
Hero belongs to the good side, so she and the rest of good
people will live happy the rest of their lives. The ones who are bad, have
disappeared along the play. At the end all is so happy and so perfect that we
forget what had really happened.
[1] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[2] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[3] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[4] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[5] http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/playingshakespeare/theplay/characters/hero/
[6] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[7] http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/playingshakespeare/theplay/characters/beatrice/
[8] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[9] Forés, Vicente, Curso Monográfico Literatura Inglesa (Shakespeare in Performance), 2007-2008.
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_at_first_sight
[11] Forés, Vicente, Curso Monográfico Literatura Inglesa (Shakespeare in Performance), 2007-2008.
[12] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[13] http://www.shakespeares-globe.org/playingshakespeare/theplay/characters/claudio/
[14] Forés, Vicente, Curso Monográfico Literatura Inglesa (Shakespeare in Performance), 2007-2008.
[15] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[16] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[17] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[18] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[19] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[20] Forés, Vicente, Curso Monográfico Literatura Inglesa (Shakespeare in Performance), 2007-2008.
[21] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[22] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[23] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html
[24] http://shakespeare.mit.edu/much_ado/full.html