Love Drunk. Men and women think on vastly different planes, communication is
constantly construed due to their differences in thinking. Women tend to be ruled
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Love Drunk Men and women think on vastly different planes, communication is constantly construed due to their differences in thinking. Women tend to be ruled by emotions and analyze everything, whereas men have been known to be more simple about the thought process, their decision making is not directly connected to “what their heart is telling them.” This gender stereotype can be applied to many situations in which males and females have had some misunderstanding, due to a lack of communication, due to a different way of understanding the world. William Shakespeare loved to illustrate theses differences in his many plays, the female characters would be flighty and talkative, while the male characters would be reckless and violent. He would stage them constantly dancing around the opposite sex, until things were so twisted, that the only way to solve the problems would be through death or marriage. One distinctive thing that distinguished a comedy from a tragedy was the kind of love the characters had for each other. Shakespeare was a fan of many kinds of love: family love, guilty love, forbidden love etc... In William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing love presents itself in many forms, from a teasing, bantering relationship, to love at first sight etc. Both forms of love undergo many challenges that threaten to destroy the foundation the couples stand on. Through a series of trial and error, the relationships deepen, and love develops into a friendship, full of trust and understanding. Shakespeare does an excellent job of clearly distinguishing the different aspects of relationships and love, but ties everything together with the general theme of marriage. With Much Ado About Nothing ending in a double marriage, the theme is obvious to the audience, that all types of love can endure all things. Benedick and Beatrice, Claudio and Hero, these two couples represent two types of loves that learn to overcome many things. “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady I ever looked on” (Claudio: act 1 s: 1) “I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?” (Benedick: act 1 s:1) With this brief moment in the very beginning of the play, the audience catches a theme being
discussed between main characters: Claudio and Benedick. The audience can gather an assumption about the attitude and general disposition of the two men. Claudio is in love, struck by looks alone, while Benedick clearly has a more negative attitude towards the abstract concept, and how even the idea of love, causes grown men to act. “How much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviors to love” (Benedick: act 2 s: 3) the two men experience different kinds of love throughout the play. Benedick and Beatrice are the couple in the play that the characters are constantly teasing, but no one really thinks will get together. They are forever voicing their strong opinions and continuously bantering. Their particular love stems from a rocky friendship and an even rockier concept of the others feelings, yet in the end both make the conscious decision to continue to build the thin foundation their relationship stands on. Benedick is the skeptic and Beatrice is the opinionated female. A major element of the play is the way in which Beatrice and Benedick’s emotions are handled. The characters believe love can be molded and even forced into submission. This undertone of trickery is a device of Shakespeare’s to show the unstable and ever changing matter that makes up the chemistry of love. In one way, Shakespeare is making fun of those that are more easily persuaded, by showing his audience how quickly things can fall apart. This of course is seen when Beatrice and Benedick discover the lie and attempt to deny their reciprocated emotions. Don Pedro and Claudio discuss Hero’s potential answer to Claudio’s, as yet unvoiced intentions. Benedick continues to whine, yet when the two men begin to tease him about his potential in a marriage, Benedick bolts away from the very mention of him ever being a husband, “Here is a good horse to hire…here you may see Benedick the married man.” (Benedick act 1 s: 1) Shakespeare is illuminating the attitude of many who are afraid to fall in love. Benedick is known to his friends as “having a contemptible spirit” (Pedro act 2 s: 3) He comes across as prideful and independent; he scorns those who happen toward romantic tendencies. Claudio and Don Pedro laugh his attitude off, claiming that’s just how he is; yet they still determine to trick him into loving Beatrice. “To bring
Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection.” (Pedro act 2 s: 1) Together the two of them conspire with Hero and Leonato, and the merry group fashions themselves a pair of cupid wings. “Some cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.” (Hero act 3 s: 1) Benedick has a special contempt for Beatrice. “Why my dear lady disdain! Are you yet living?” (Benedick act 1 s: 1) Despite his negative attitude Benedick is still quick to believe that Beatrice loves him and most firmly determines to love her back. This arrogant nature is found in his insistence at his popularity with women. “But it is certain I am loved all ladies, only you excepted.”(Benedick act 1 s: 1) An essential element to falling in love is interest in a relationship; Beatrice presents a challenge to Benedick, she refutes everything he says and attacks him with just as much fury. This is refreshing and exciting, and when Benedick overhears how much Beatrice really loves him he is amazed. Leonato and Claudio were also careful to voice their worry that Benedick would tease Beatrice to death if he knew. “He would make but a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse” (Claudio act 2 s: 3) this was essential in sealing the deal concerning Benedick’s affection for Beatrice; for now he becomes determined to love her. “For I will be horribly in love with her!” (Benedick act 2 s: 3) Beatrice lives with her uncle and cousin; she is strong minded and free willed. Her Uncle often teases her about getting a husband. “Thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd of thy tongue.” (Leonato act 2 s: 1) Leonato’s lines infer a comfortably teasing tone, he is more than happy to take care of his niece, she is a comfort to Hero and to Leonato. Yet, with the knowledge an audience today has about the conditions of a woman’s role in Elizabethan England, one can’t help but wonder at Shakespeare’s true intentions in creating an independent female character. Beatrice knows her role in life is to get married, as Benedick so eloquently puts it “the world must be peopled!”(Benedick act 2 s: 3) yet she still treats the idea of marriage lightly, she will not marry for money and she will not marry without love; yet she claims to be immune to love. Beatrice has an extensive list of qualities she expects in a husband. “He that hath a beard is more than a youth,
and he that hath no beard is less than a man.” She can be seen as also being afraid of love; she is too great a thinker to give her heart to a simplistic man. Despite her strong opinions of marriage Beatrice is also very easily persuaded that Benedick is in love with her and she quickly resolves to reciprocate the feelings. “Contempt farewell…maiden pride adieu! Benedick love on; I will requite thee, taming my wild heart to thy loving hand.” (Beatrice act 3 s: 1) Benedick and Beatrice both have their qualms with love and with trust in general, they fight and nitpick, yet are led to believe the other one loves each other. When they admit their love to each other, it is tested with Hero’s betrayal. Beatrice challenges Benedick to prove himself by calling Claudio to a duel. “Use it for my love some other way than swearing by it.” (Beatrice act 4 s: 1) in the end when all is resolved, both take a step in healing and dive deeper into their love. Claudio and Hero are another example of the game of love. Claudio falls in love with Hero upon first sight. “Can the world buy such a jewel?” (Claudio act 1 s: 1) He is determined to ask her hand in marriage and marry her as soon as possible. Don Pedro agrees to help Claudio attain Hero’s hand. “I will break with her and with her father, and thou shalt have her” (Pedro act 1 s: 1). Claudio is a good man but his distinguishing characteristic flaw is his inability to trust others. When Don Jon and his men trick Claudio into believing that Don Pedro is wooing Hero for himself, Claudio becomes greatly depressed. “Friendship is constant in all other things, save in the office and affairs of love” (Claudio act 2 s: 1). Beatrice eventually comes to Claudio’s rescue, assisting him in seeing the truth of the manner. The problem however, is that from the get go Hero and Claudio’s relationship is on a rocky foundation. The casual lofty manner in which love was approached perhaps caused some of the problems between Claudio and Hero later in the play. The wedding was planned within a few days of the couple meeting each other; and they were set up during a masked ball by a friend. There is no firm foundation for love to blossom. The pair has not become good friends, there is no understanding or real knowledge
of the individuals characteristics, so there can be no trust. If trust and friendship had been a part of the love from the beginning, Claudio might have been slower in seeing so many faults with Hero and her alleged affair. Shakespeare paints both forms of love in negative connotations, yet in the end both couples come together in the best way possible: Marriage. Though love comes with lots of problems, it can also bring lots of happiness and merriment, as Shakespeare clearly shows with his love portrayals in Much Ado About Nothing.
