Everything starts as we expect it to. First the priest speaks. When the friar asks “you
Come hither, my lord, to marry this lady?” everyone expects Claudio to reply yes, but the wedding guests become surprised and confused when he replies “no”. This creates suspense in the audience and wedding guests. Then Leonato changes the words as he is trying to get the wedding to proceed “to be married to her”. Shakespeare has built suspense and he keeps the suspense going, he also creates tension in Hero. Hero is a sweet and innocent girl; her father controls her. Then Claudio begins to be sarcastic and says to Leonato “Hero is a rich and precious gift”. Leonato and Hero think that he is being a nice and saying good thing about her. The wedding guests start feeling unpleasant and puzzled, as they don’t know what’s happening. But the wedding guests know something is going to go wrong. Only Don John, Don Pedro and us, the audience know what is happening.
In act 1 scene 1, we see a positive side to Claudio. We see him as a brave soldier who is willing to fight for his prince and country. “He hath, borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure of a lamb, the feet’s of a lion”. This statement is telling us that Claudio is kind and sweet like a lamb but he is also a soldier and will fight like lion. Later in the play we see another side to Claudio, a cold hearted and cruel side. We can see that Shakespeare builds tension and anger in Claudio. Shakespeare could have had Claudio to go to Leonato and tell him what has happened. Instead Shakespeare wants to shame and humiliate Hero, he wants to build tension, confusion and suspense within the audience.
In Kenneth Branagh’s film version there is a lot of anger in Claudio. He creates confusion within the audience. Shakespeare also maintains the suspense in the audience by making the ceremony to proceed normally. Everyone is surprised when Claudio replies “no” the he doesn’t want to marry Hero. But Leonato make the ceremony to proceed, Claudio then makes a sarcastic statement “will you give me this maid your daughter?” The keyword here is ‘maid’ because it means virgin. So he uses sarcasm by calling Hero a maid, as he suggests that she is no longer a maid. Leonato and Hero think that he is expressing his love for Hero. They proceed with the ceremony, and now at this point we can see anger in Claudio’s face as he could explode any minute. Then Don Pedro and Claudio both call Hero a “rotten orange”. Sweet and nice from the outside but nasty, cold hearted and unfaithful on the inside. At this stage Claudio lets all his anger out on Hero and he addresses her as a ‘Common stale’. He also tells Leonato that he saw Hero having sex with Borachio. This leaves Hero confused, as she doesn’t know anything about it.
Shakespeare uses Leonato to extend the drama. Firstly Leonato is convinced that Hero is not a maid meaning she is no longer a virgin. Don John and Don Pedro act as Claudio’s witnesses as they saw what happened. Shakespeare used them to be his witnesses because they are both important people and also everyone will believe Don Pedro, as he is the prince. Beatrice was not with Hero so therefore she cannot defend her cousin. Leonato wishes for Hero to die “do not live hero, do not ope thine eyes”. The audience is shocked to hear this, as it is the last thing we expect to hear. Leonato is confused, angry and does not understand – he feels ashamed.
Now we, the audience begin to see the other side of Leonato. “Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes”. We can clearly see that he has lost all of his love for Hero, he is really hurt. He can never forgive Hero for what she has done, also we can clearly see that he has loved her almost all his life. He wishes that he had took a beggars child “why had I not with charitable hands, took up a beggars issue at my gates”. If he had took a beggars child then he would be able to disown her, she will not really be his child. Now we see Leonato hurt and he shows love for Hero. “But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I praised, and mine that I was proud on, mine so much, that I myself, was to myself not mine”. He is showing grief, showing how much he loved her and it will mean a lot to lose her. He is calling Hero his “but mine”. We can see that he is really hurt. But then he says that Hero has drowned herself in ink. “oh she is fallen into a pit of ink”. Ink represents shame, it is a dark colour and it stains, and that all the water in the oceans cannot clean her again. “the wide sea hath drops too few to wash her clean again”. Leonato then sees Hero as ‘tainted flesh’. She is no longer pure, it is as if her shame can be smelt upon her. “and salt too little too wash her clean”. The sea has too little salt to wash the smell and shame off her. She is stained forever.
Following Leonatos speech, Shakespeare moves the plot along by having Friar Francis and Benedick to come up with a plan. The plan is to pretend that Hero is dead, so that Claudio will feel guilty for her death. Once they all agreed on it, they all left except Beatrice and Benedick, which are left alone. Previously Benedick and Beatrice have been insulting each other, this clearly indicates to us that they both have feelings for each other. Both Beatrice and Benedick are embarrassed to declare their love for one another, they are frightened that the other person might reply “I don’t like you!” Their friends into believing that the other person loves them have tricked Beatrice and Benedick. Benedict is the more ‘open’ of the two as he is the first to declare his love for Beatrice. We can see in Beatrice’s face that she is shocked when he declares his love. At first Beatrice denies having feelings for Benedick but then Beatrice declares her love for him. The mood changes when Beatrice asks Benedick to “kill Claudio.” We can imagine Benedicks face. Claudio and Benedick have been friends for a long time. So at first he rejects to kill Claudio “ha, not for the wide world”. Beatrice is shown to be cold hearted and wants Claudio to be dead for what he did to Hero. Beatrice wishes that she were a man so she could kill Claudio. “oh God that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market place”. Beatrice then tells benedick that Claudio has wronged Hero. “sweet Hero, she is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone”. Benedict asks Beatrice if she is sure that Hero is wronged.” think you in your soul the count Claudio hath wronged Hero.”Beatricereplies with a ‘yes’.yeah ,as sure as I have a thought, or soul.” Benedict tells Beatrice that’s enough and he is convinced, so he will challenge Claudio.” enough, I am engaged, I will challenge him.”
As one love story dies another begins.
