Ahahaha… senangnya… jam 23.24 dan essay gw selsai juga… huff ampir 6 jam kali bwt ngerangkai ni essay (yah tmasuk makan, salat, ma mandi… plus dtambah ngemil2 dikit dan bikin kopi –> yg tnyata kuat juga, byasanya kopi g ngefek ma gw). Anyway, klo lo lgy iseng g ada kerjaan boleh2 aja klo mau baca essay karangan gw ini, hehehe. G dianjurkan sih sbenernya, toh gw cuma iseng aja majang dsini, tp sapa tau aja ada yg pengen tau *PD jaya, hahaha. Slamat menikmati! ^^ (PS. gw majang 2 essay sblomnya juga.. tiga2nya ttg sandiwara Shakespeare yg judulnya Much Ado about Nothing.)
Love, and Much Ado about Nothing
The various depictions of love Shakespeare exposed through the behaviour of the characters in Much Ado about Nothing suggest that there is more than one way to see and interpret love, causing one’s reaction towards it to differ from one another. In Much Ado about Nothing, the characters who seem to put more value in love are the younger characters, Claudio and Hero, who are pictured to praise highly of romantic love. Their love towards each other is illustrated through the use of verse and imageries; for example Claudio describes Hero as “a jewel”, “fair”, and “sweetest lady” to express how he loves her and how precious he is to her. He also often speaks in verse when talking about his feelings toward her, not only to show his seriousness but also because at that time, the fashion was that lovers wrote love poems to express their love towards each other.
In contrast to the younger characters’ view on love, the older characters seem to not put much value to it. During the masked ball scene in Act 2 Scene 1, Leonato says to Hero: “If the Prince do solicit you in that kind, you know your answer,” suggesting that during that time, for a man of a high position like him, status and pride is probably more important than love. Later in the first marriage scene in Act 4 Scene 1, he once again shows this kind of judgment when he believes Claudio and Don Pedro’s word over his own daughter’s: “Would the two Princes lie, and Claudio lie?” In fact, Leonato is not the only one who links love with status; Don Pedro, in Act 1 Scene 1 when discussing Claudio’s feelings with him, also shares this point of view when he supported Claudio’s choice of Hero by saying that she is “worthy”, not only because she is fair but also in a social context where Hero has the same level of status with them, being Leonato, the Governor of Messina’s daughter and his only heir.
Benedick and Beatrice also have their on view on love; even though in the end they do fall in love and start to cherish it more, but in the beginning they were very sarcastic towards love. Benedick believes that no woman is good enough for him and often make statements such as “I will live a bachelor”, “If I do (fall in love), hang me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me”, and “… love will transform me into an oyster” which signifies that at first he didn’t believe in love; he believed that falling in love would make him look like a fool and getting married would make him a cuckold. The same goes for Beatrice; when Leonato brought up a topic about her getting a husband, she said: “Not till God make men of some other metal than earth” and “Adam’s sons are my brethren, and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred”. This makes evident that Beatrice, in the same way as Benedick reacts towards love and women, thinks lowly of love and believes that no man is suitable to be her husband, making it a reason to not get married.
Besides their age, the characters’ attitude towards love also seem to depend on their status and social class; in this play the characters which are involved in romantic relationships are those of high social classes. As we may see throughout the play, only the main characters (which all happen to be from high social classes) give special attention to love while the lower rank characters—such as Dogberry, Verges, Conrade, etc.—give none. There is some hint that Borrachio and Margaret are involved in some kind of romance, but it can’t be compared to the Hero-Claudio relationship or even to the Ben-Bea relationship since it doesn’t seem to be anything serious; the only reason it was brought up is only to help Don John’s plan. A reason why love is linked with high social class was probably that during Shakespeare’s time, romantic love was considered a privilege given to the high social class only.
If we look into the story more deeply, the power love has for the development of the play itself is—undeniably—very great; almost all the events and turning point that happened in this play is based on love and one of the most important one being Don John’s plot which relies on Claudio’s jealousy towards Hero. It is apparent that to Don John, Claudio’s love and blinded jealousy is a powerful tool to build mischief since just by ‘pushing the right button’ all could be automatically done by itself. Claudio’s own jealousy only needs to be added by some suspicion planted by Don John and Borrachio for him throw away all his trust to Hero and make Don John’s plan a huge success. Another turning point that involves love is the Ben-Bea case planned by Don Pedro; it only needs a small amount of love and interest to begin with for Benedick and Beatrice to take Don Pedro and the others’ words wholly and believe that they love each other; in fact only that small amount of belief is enough to make them throw away their previous rather nasty judgements on love.
In conclusion, love serves an important role through their various depictions in Much Ado about Nothing by exploring and exposing all the different qualities and personalities of the characters by observing their judgements and reactions towards love and in the same time helps to connect one idea to another therefore sowing up the story into one big complete final piece.
Much Ado about Nothing:
A Comparison of Benedick’s Soliloquies
Through Benedick’s two soliloquies in Act 2 Scene 3, Shakespeare points out how Benedick’s heart and attitude towards love had changed from being menacingly skeptical into ever more so praiseful. In the beginning of scene 3 Benedick unmistakably stated that falling in love is a foolish thing as he said: “… another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love…” More over, he despised how Claudio changed after he fell in love with Hero; he complained about how Claudio had become soft and sentimental unlike the soldier he used to be: “… there was no music with him but the drum and fife; and now he had rather hear the tabor and the pipe…” The use of musical imagery here is to show the contrast of Claudio’s attitude before and after he fell in love; the drum and the fife is associated with military music—which is formal—while the tabor and pipe is associated festivals and social gatherings which are more relaxed and melodic. Benedick also used other imageries to illustrate Claudio’s change, such as fashion: “… I have known, when he would walked ten mile afoot to see a good armour and now will he lie ten nights awake, carving the fashion of a new doublet,” and food: He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose, like an honest man and a soldier; and now is he turned ortographer; his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes,” both symbolising the same thing: how the brave noble Claudio turned weak after encountering love. Benedick is so skeptical towards love that he swore that he would never make a fool of himself by being in love; he believed that being in love would transform him into an oyster—shut from the outside world only to be lost in its own small private world—or in this matter, busy being lovesick.
In the first soliloquy, we could also see how Benedick’s view towards women was: he believed that no woman is suitable for him. He had put unexceptionably high conditions for his women; according to him, the perfect women for him must be fair, wise, virtuous, rich, mild, noble, of good discourse, an excellent musician, and must have hair in the colour that pleased God; otherwise he wouldn’t let them go near him. This severe arrogance of him that he had towards women made the audience start to wonder whether something might happen that would change his mind; and later on, something did happen. After he overheard Don Pedro and the other’s conversation about Beatrice falling in love with him, he started to throw away his old views; he began to see Beatrice as a woman of high qualities who satisfied his previous conditions on women, therefore making her highly suitable for him.
As his views towards women changed, so did his views towards love; he then started to value love more. Note what he said about love and marriage then: “… I have railed so long against marriage; but doth the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age,” and “When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married;” so now being in love with Beatrice he started to deny his previous thoughts; in self defense he said that he didn’t really mean to say all the things he said before.
As the play goes on we will see further change in Benedick’s personality and attitude, especially towards love and Beatrice; so it is clear that the main function of these two contrasting soliloquies is to be a bridge that links and helps the audience to understand Benedick’s quick change altogether.
“The Exposition of Act 1 Much Ado about Nothing”
Public and private scenes play an important role in Act 1 of “Much Ado about Nothing” as Shakespeare not only revealed various plots and information through them, but he also, using the same technique, succeeded to build dramatic tension. A fine example of this is how Shakespeare exposed to the readers Don John’s true villainous nature and foul plots concerning Claudio and Hero. In public scenes, Don John appears to be a thoughtful and quiet man who respects his half-brother, Don Pedro, and shows a good sense of politeness to his host, Leonato, shown in Act 1 Scene 1 when he was welcomed and invited to stay by him: “I thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.” In private scenes, though, this is not the case; what we see is the exact opposite: the devious and evil side of Don John. In Act 1 Scene 3 Don John himself admits that he is a “plain-dealing villain”, who hates his brother Don Pedro, and wants to be free of him; note what he said in this scene about his feelings towards Don Pedro: “I had rather been a canker in a hedge than a rose in his grace.” He is saying that he would rather be low and disgraceful as a canker that slowly and silently sucks life out of the hedge it grows upon, than being cherished and honoured as a rose but forced to serve his brother, the Prince, whom he extremely dislike.
We also, in Act 1 Scene 3, learn about the plot Don John was brewing concerning Claudio and Hero which would eventually develop, making the situation much more complex with the help of various reoccurring misinformation; with this proving to be one of Shakespeare’s most powerful tool which is used over and over again throughout the play. The first misinformation appeared in Act 1 Scene 2 where one of Leonato’s men mistakenly thought that Don Pedro, not Claudio, had fallen in love with Hero and was going to ask her hand in marriage. This silly mistake would’ve had indirectly helped Don John’s plan to work out since it fits with his idea of tricking Claudio that Don Pedro would betray him to get Hero for himself—even though we learn later in Act 2 that it didn’t—therefore, along with all the secrecy and plots the audience learned previously from the private scenes, it would make them despise the malcontent Don John and make them start to guess what will happen next; in other words, it would create dramatic tension.
Also in Act 1, Shakespeare revealed the relationship of Beatrice and Benedick as well as Hero and Claudio’s in a totally different way, whereas for Beatrice and Benedick he mainly used prose and dialogues filled with humour whilst for Hero and Claudio he tends to use verses, in order to give contrast to the two different couples. Beatrice and Benedick’s relationship is very dynamic, filled with all sorts of sarcastic though humourous arguments between the two, concerning each other’s flaw. Probably Shakespeare’s reason to use prose, not verses, in their dialogues is to maintain their silliness, because this, is one of the things that gave soul to this play. The way Beatrice and Benedick disputed and kept fighting each other at first, added with Benedick’s statement: “I will live a bachelor,” and the fact that they might have had a previous relationship before—which would be learned in Act 2—had undoubtedly amused the audience and made them sympathise with their relationship; therefore, making them anticipate for something to occur that would hopefully change their feelings towards each other.
In contrast with Benedick and Beatrice’s relationship, Hero and Claudio’s are much more pure and innocent which was why Shakespeare chose to put several lines of verses in dialogues concerning their relationship. As we have known, during Shakespeare’s time verses were often used in romantic love poems and here we could see from the way Claudio discussed his feelings towards Hero in verses and metaphors with Don Pedro that he is deeply in love with her and probably used them to express his feelings as it was the tradition at that time; for example, in the end of Act 1 Scene 1 Claudio compared Hero to a jewel: “Can the world buy such a jewel?” to show how beautiful and priceless Hero is to him, how pure, great, and charming she is, and how he thinks that she was far beyond his reach. Another reason why Shakespeare used verses is probably to show the importance of this matter to Claudio, since before this Claudio only thinks of battles and wars but now suddenly, from out of nowhere, his mind is filled with thoughts of love:
“ But now I am returned and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires,
All prompting me how fair young Hero is,
Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.”
Hierarchical dominance are also portrayed in this play, whether it’s between Don Pedro and Leonato or Leonato and Hero; we could see how respectfully Leonato, the Governor of Messina, treated Don Pedro, the Prince of Arragon, undoubtedly caused by the difference of ranks between them and how in the other hand he seemed to hold control of her daughter, Hero, in their father and daughter relationship. His respect towards Don Pedro was shown from the beginning of the play when he welcomed him to Messina in Act 1 Scene 1: “Never came trouble to my house in the likeness of your grace” and later in Act 1 Scene 2 when he heard that Don Pedro was going to propose her daughter: “No, no; we will hold it as a dream, till it appear itself; but I will acquaint my daughter withal, that she be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure this be true.” This last dialogue clearly states how he thought more of Don Pedro and himself rather than his daughter; he didn’t bother to think about his daughter’s feeling towards Claudio, since for him, having the high ranked and noble Don Pedro as a son-in-law was a “dream” more appealing. Still related to this, later in Act 2 we would eventually see Hero’s obedience to his command; how she is willing to sacrifice her own happiness just to obey her father’s words and this, added by her father’s control over her, along with the high respect and appreciation Leonato showed towards Don Pedro and how he tends to believe him rather than his daughter; would serve a far important role later in the play.
Through all these various techniques in Act 1, we could see that Shakespeare had managed to expose information about the characters and their relationships, build and develop the story, and raise the tension either explicitly or implicitly, to prepare the audience for a much bigger purpose later on in the play.
Tp itu masih mending drpd nasib Christine sih.. Dya diajak ngedance ma cowo mabok (yg dgn dodolya dya terima) dan ujung2nya si cowo itu malah kurang ajar nemplok2 seenaknya.. Minta dcium sgala malah. Nglyat mreka b2 Ailsa ngbisikin gw, "I think u should rescue her." And that’s what I did. Gw deketin mreka, dan bgitu Christine ngliat gw dya buru2 blg "Take me to the toilet!" sambil ngeraih tgn gw. Tangan Christine gw tarik dan lsg gw seret ke luar tanpa noleh2 ke blakang sampe nyampe WC..
