In Act 3, Scene 1, Hero and Ursula trick Beatrice into thinking that Benedick is in love with her. In this scene Beatrice is described as a "lapwing" (3.1.25) and a "haggards of the rock"(3.1.37), both wild birds, but she is also described as being "limed"(3.1.109) and killed "with traps"(3.1.112). Once she is convinced of Benedick's love, she instructs herself:
Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!
No glory lives behind the back of such.
And Benedick, love on; I will requite thee,
Taming my wild heart to thy loving hand (3.1.115-18)
Compare this speech with Portia's profession of love to Bassanio once he has mastered the secret of the casks:
But the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpracticed;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn, happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all, is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed
As from her lord, her governor, her king. (3.2.161-9)
What are these plays telling us about a woman's place in love and marriage? Is this a traditional, patriarchal view of marriage in which the man is dominant? Is this a realistic view of marriage in which compromise is essential for happiness? What future is in store for such headstrong and independent women as Beatrice and Portia in the institution of marriage?
In Much Ado About Nothing, marriages are patriarchal, making the woman a man’s possession to fulfill his needs. Shakespeare uses the metaphor of a hunter catching his prey to describe a man seeking a wife, showing the man’s personal need for a submissive, not an equal.
ReplyDeleteIf Benedick doesn’t express his love for Beatrice, he will “Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly” (3.1.83). Shakespeare is making Benedick’s love for Beatrice seem like a basic need, a hunger that he must satisfy or a thirst that he must quench. Therefore, he makes Benedick, the male, into a hunter concerned with his own survival, which in this case requires a woman. When he is encouraged to keep his feelings for Beatrice to himself, Benedick would have to “wrestle with affection” (3.1.44). By using barbaric language such as “wrestle” alongside soft words such as “affection”, Shakespeare is making Benedick into a type of predator, translating to the dominant side of the relationship and overpowering the soft side of the relationship. He isn’t a gentlemanly figure; he is a man trying to conquer his target even if he is in love. If he doesn’t tell Beatrice, it hurts his own character and being; he is the driving force of the relationship.
Shakespeare doesn’t just make Benedick into a predator; he makes Beatrice into a vulnerable piece of prey for him to pounce on. She is described as “a lapwing” (3.1.25), a “haggard of the rock” (3.1.37), and is being lured in by “sweet bait” (3.1.34). Both a lapwing and a haggard are birds, metaphorically Beatrice, are symbols or freedom. Beatrice is an unmarried virgin, making her free from the bounds of marriage and children. However, the talk surrounding Benedick’s interest in Beatrice is tempting bait to lure Beatrice, the free bird, in and trap her, taking away her liberty and bounding her in marriage with a dominant hunter. Beatrice becomes the attractive prey that has nothing to gain but a higher status from marriage.
The path to marriage is not filled with roses and butterflies for all couples, because “Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps” (3.2.112). Shakespeare brings Benedick and Beatrice together by a means of trapping, just like a hunter traps his target. Love seems to be something attractive from the outside, but withholding troubles and issues within it. Beatrice knows that Benedick is “Taming my loving heart to thy loving hand” (3.2.118) and “bind our love” (3.2.120).The word bind entails bringing Beatrice and Benedick together and locking them into a long-term commitment with no way out. Beatrice goes from the free “haggard on a rock” to a tamed wild heart. The heart that was once free is now held back and constrained by Benedick’s love. Shakespeare’s use of the hunting metaphor shows that marriage fills the man’s needs by constraining the woman.
The phrase to “settle down” is often used in contemporary language to describe the time in one’s life when we attempt to find a steady job and raise a family, to metaphorically grow some roots; this idea is seen also in Much Ado About Nothing and Merchant of Venice. Primarily Much Ado focuses on the couple of Beatrice and Benedict as they “settle down”. For Beatrice this means she must bid “Contempt, farewell, and maiden pride, adieu!”(3.1.115). Beatrice’s life to this point has had no love to ground her, and yet when she learns that the man whom she has so often teased is also the man she loves she immediately assumes she must give up all that adolescent nonsense and become a proper lady. Likewise when Benedict hears that Beatrice loves him he backpedals, saying to justify all his previous bluster about not planning to marry by saying “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married” (2.3.245). Shakespeare seems to think that true love brings with it a desire to settle down and start a family
ReplyDeleteUnsurprisingly this idea also shows up in another of Shakespeare’s famous comedies, The Merchant of Venice. Portia who since the time of her father’s death has been the master of her kingdom and home until such a time as Bassano chooses the correct casket and he becomes her legal husband. Portia’s spirit immediately “Commits itself to yours (Bassano’s) to be directed”(3.2.168). Portia’s wild single days are over but she gladly walks forward into marriage because she loves Bassano and believes to settle down with him would be the next best step for her to take.