Who Needs Claudio?

In Shakespeare’s play Much Ado About Nothing two characters stand out more than any others (except for Benedick and Beatrice), not for their dynamic personalities, but for their lack thereof; these two characters are of course Hero and Claudio. Hero and Claudio’s one dimensional personalities are there, I believe, not because Shakespeare got lazy, but because they boost and add dimension to Benedick, and Beatrice, and make the love of these characters truer, stronger, more real, and more believable.

The audience gets its first taste of Hero and her docile character in the first scene, although she only has one line, it is made plain that she is Leonato‘s daughter, and is “like an honorable father,” (I, i, 117) in the way that she behaves in a docile and modest manner. I think Benedick states it best “I noted her not; but I looked on her,” (I, i, 171). This is exactly how we feel as an audience; she said little and does not posses the spirit, or passion to say more: just look to what Claudio says about her; “is she not a modest young lady?” (I, i, 172), and the answer is yes, too modest. Beatrice on the other hand, is fluid and intriguing; we have definitely “noted her,” and not for her modesty. In the opening scene she is portrayed as an intense character full of life and we definitely see the “skirmish of wit between [Beatrice and Benedick],” (I, i, 51).

In reading this scene, we see the “merry war” of Beatrice and Benedick, and feel that these two characters are much more suitable for love, than are Hero and Claudio. Also, we get the first inklings of romance between them; they are both sides of the same coin, and through their fiery discourses we see they are of like mind, and know that they are destined to be toge...

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... and yet again Claudio fails miserably. Their love is just not made of the same metal as Beatrice and Benedick, and thus it falls short, and by doing so lifts up Beatrice and Benedick’s love, at least in my eyes, to something more real; more tangible.

There are other mishaps, criss-crosses, and rearranging, but eventually it all evens out in the end, and Claudio, by that time, is rather fortunate in the fact that Hero is one dimensional, because if she was anything else she would not have married him. And finally at the end of the play, Beatrice and Benedick’s love is in full bloom, and they are to be wed. All of this could not have happened if it were not for the passive, one dimensional characters of Claudio and Hero; who throughout the play boosted, lifted up, and brought together Beatrice and Benedick. Maybe we do need more Heros and Claudios after all.