Tag Archives: cuckold

In class on Wednesday, we spoke about Benedick and Beatrice’s apparent sudden change of heart regarding their feelings for one another.  When Benedick “overhears” Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato discussing how Beatrice is mad with love for him, and Beatrice “overhears” Hero and Ursula speaking of Benedick’s own love for her, they immediately say they find themselves able to love one another.  But just as these apparent changes of heart reflect obvious long dormant feelings for each other, there are other instances of suddenness in Much Ado that are reflective of other characters’ own personality traits.

One somewhat concerning example is how easily Claudio is willing to believe that Hero would make a fool of him by having relations with another man.  With no proof or prior suspicion, Claudio immediately takes Don John at his word when Don John speaks of Hero’s alleged infidelity.  We spoke in class about how old we suspect each character to be, and I think this naivete proves that Claudio cannot be anything but a young teenager.  

Claudio is also buying into this sense of bravado that we have seen from many of the other male characters, perhaps in an effort to seem like his older fellow soldiers.  The men have many times referred to how they would rather die than be made a cuckold, with frequent references to having a woman make them wear (metaphorical) horns.  So when Claudio hears what Don John has to say, he is so afraid of being made a cuckold himself that he cannot see clearly enough to give Hero the benefit of the doubt. 

The fact that Margaret, the servant, poses as Hero during this tryst also proves that Claudio doesn’t even really know his fiancee that well – even from a distance, one would think that a man would know the woman he supposedly loves.  I believe he is just so afraid of being made a fool of that he already begins planning how to shame her back (the later scene that he makes at the wedding altar) before he even sees this show Don John has put together for him.