duality in claudio

DUALITY IN CLAUDIO: HERO AND VILLAIN

The character I have decided to analyze is Claudio from Much Ado About Nothing. Claudio is a young soldier who has won great acclaim fighting under Don

Pedro during the recent wars. He falls in love with Hero upon his return to Messina. As he is setting up his wedding with Hero, he believes Don John’s words (that Hero is being unfaithful) and that leads him to take revenge and dump her in the altar.

To the Elizabethan audience, Claudio was “the model of masculinity and a gullible romantic” (megaessays), in other words: the hero of the play. Shakespeare introduces Don John, Don Pedro’s illegitimate brother, as the villain of this story but in my opinion Claudio appears, at least for a modern audience, as one of the most unlikeable characters of the play.

The main points that I am going to base on to show duality in Claudio’s character are:

1. The weakness that Claudio shows and how easy is to trick him; and

2. That Claudio’s love for Hero is not so strong as it seems to be.

At the beginning of the play the traditional role of the Elizabethan female is clearly defined by Hero: she is beautiful, kind and gentle so Claudio is immediately attracted to her. Hero plays the submissive, weak victim whose place in society and life is determined by the affections of Claudio. When her father, Leonato, instructs Hero that she must consent to a wedding proposal by Don Pedro, a man she barely knows, she happily agrees. Leonato says, “Daughter, remember what I told you. If the prince do solicit you in that kind, you know the answer.” In truth, Hero and her father realize later, she had not conceded to marrying Don Pedro, but Claudio. Her willingness to transport her hand from one man to another shows how oppressed by society she is.

Hero is a silent presence for the entire First and Second Acts, given a voice only when others speak about or for her. Her docile behaviour, always willing to please, becomes really annoying as the play progress, and more so if we compare her with witty Beatrice, one of Shakespeare’s strongest feminine characters. It must be her submission what appeals Claudio the most. They seem to be very much in love. But the circumstances that lead to a marriage between Hero and Claudio make it impossible that there is real love between them. In the play, the only conversation Claudio and Hero have is at their wedding when he denounced her and made public her accusation of promiscuity. Claudio’s attraction to Hero is strictly superficial; Claudio knows nothing of Hero other than her reputation for being modest and what his eyes can see of her beauty.

(free-essays)

We find the first evidence in Act I, Scene I that Claudio may not be as much in love with Hero as he claims to be:

“Hath Leonato any son, my lord?”

Claudio is a very “sensible” lover, indeed (Ingberg, Pablo). In this scene with Don Pedro, Claudio tries to find out the economic perspectives with a future marriage with Hero and makes sure that Hero doesn’t have to share her dowry with any sibling. It is not Hero that Claudio is in love with but his own interest.

As we keep on reading, Claudio reveals himself as a weak and distrustful character in two scenes. First in act II, scene I:

“Thus answer I in the name of Benedick,
But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.
'Tis certain so; the prince wooes for himself.
Friendship is constant in all other things
Save in the office and affairs of love:
Therefore, all hearts in love use their own tongues;
Let every eye negotiate for itself
And trust no agent; for beauty is a witch
Against whose charms faith melteth into blood.
This is an accident of hourly proof,
Which I mistrusted not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!”

It is proven here how easy is to trick Claudio as he accepts Don John's insinuation that Don Pedro woos Hero for himself. What seems surprising is that Claudio doesn’t condemn the Prince's alleged deception but the feminine wiles he believes to have inspired it. He says, “Let every eye negotiate for itself and trust no agent, for beauty is a witch against whose charms faith melteth into blood.”

The other scene that reveals Claudio’s weakness is when he is tricked yet again by Don John into believing the figure that he saw in Hero’s window to be his modest bride and allowed no other interpretation.

(free-essays)

Claudio shows his nastiest behaviour at the failed wedding ceremony, the climax of the play, in which he rejects Hero, accusing her of infidelity and violated chastity and publicly shaming her in front of her father. In Shakespeare’s time, a woman’s honor was based upon her virginity and chaste behavior. For a woman to lose her honor by having sexual relations before marriage meant that she would lose all social standing, a disaster from which she could never recover. Moreover, this loss of honor would poison the woman’s whole family. Thus, when Leonato rashly believes Claudio’s shaming of Hero at the wedding ceremony, he tries to obliterate her entirely: “Hence from her, let her die” (IV.i.153).

(sparknotes)

In my opinion, the wedding ceremony is the point of no return. There’s no forgiveness for Claudio after that. Claudio is not happy with just calling the wedding off, he also has to humiliate Hero in front of everyone. There was also a double standard in Elizabethan society: men could sleep around all they wanted while women had to keep their virginity until they were married. So I think is a little bit hypocritical from Claudio to get that angry and use such a strong language towards hero (“rotten orange” IV.i.30). I really don’t understand why Claudio trusted John a second time after John had had already tried to separate the lovers once before. It really shows how much Claudio “loves” Hero. Nevertheless, one fact that defends Claudio is that he is young and inexperienced but Don Pedro should have known better, after all, “he does not have the excuse of youth and inexperience” (sparknotes).

Shakespeare creates a contrast between the two couples of the play. At the beginning of the play a marriage between Beatrice and Benedick seemed like something unthinkable. At the end, however, Beatrice and Benedick seem to be very much in love. Claudio and Hero, on the contrary, are far from being the ideal couple that we were introduced to at the beginning: Claudio seems to marry Hero out of guilt for his previous behaviour. Hero’s willingness to marry him without questioning his behaviour toward her is appalling and I can’t help but wonder how their marriage will be in a few years.

In conclusion, we could say that Claudio is, in some way, the hero but also the villain of the play. He is a hero because Shakespeare allows him to have his happy ending. He is a villain for his treatment of Hero. It is shown again and again how he does not take any hesitation in jumping into conclusions and how little respect he has for the woman he claims to love. Claudio is undeniably a very weak character and does not gain the audience’s favour.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

- Inberg, Pablo “Mucho Ruido y Pocas Nueces”. Notas. Editorial Losada S.A. 1ª edición: octubre 2004

-SparkNotes LLC

<http://www.sparknotes.com/shakespeare/shrew/canalysis.html>

(8 May 2007)

-Free-essays

<http://www.free-essays.us/dbase/d3/lva90.shtml>

(8 May 2007)

-Mega-essays

<http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/58865.html>

(9 May 2007)

< http://www.megaessays.com/viewpaper/39994.html>

(9 May 2007)

Academic year 2006/2007

paseher@alumni.uv.es