The story is about two different sets of lovers Beatrice and Benedick and Claudio and Hero. Beatrice and Benedick both pretend to themselves that they hate one another but a cunning and well thought out plan by Don Pedro (the prince of Aragon) fools both of them into love. Claudio and Hero are made for each other and almost all the romance in the play circles around them. The evil in the play is given by Don John (also Don Pedro’s bastard brother), who tricks Claudio into believing a lie. Claudio falls for this and his relationship with Hero shatters until they marry at the end of the play to the rejoice of all good people at Leonato’s (governor of Messina and Hero’s father) home.
My ideas about the two women are that Beatrice is a feisty one with a great wit that everyone admires and Hero is almost the complete opposite being obedient and demure. I also believe they lead completely different relationships with men, I reckon Hero’s relationship with Claudio is romantic and well placed in society for the age and that Beatrice’s relationship with Benedick is odd because they both, at first, say they loath each other. The relationships are different also because in Hero’s case the relationship is man-controlled and in Beatrice’s it is an equal partnership based on mutual respect which is strange for Messina society.
The social system in Messina is patriarchal. The men have control and make the decisions. The women are meant to be decorative and obedient. Hero very much follows this system whereas Beatrice does not have the obedience, this maybe because of the loss of her father and the way in which she was brought up, as an orphan. However, Beatrice’s disobedience adds a comical and unique side to the play.
Hero represents the perfect women in Messina society; she is conventional, chaste, loyal and deferential. She knows where her place is and what her job is. All this would appear attractive to most men in Messina society, so much so that Claudio has this to say about her, this is
Tim Snell
found in Act 1 Scene 1when Claudio is admitting his love for Hero, “In mine eye she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.”.
When Claudio is asked by Benedick if he would buy her, Claudio simply questioned “Can the world buy such a jewel?” Cluadio clearly feels that she, Hero, is worth a lot more than the world can afford.
