Rosalind and Beatrice (essay)

Rosalind and Beatrice (essay)

    One of the recurring themes of Shakespeare’s plays is that of characters changing gender roles in order to explore different aspects of their sexuality. Both Beatrice in, “Much Ado About Nothing”, and Rosalind in, “As You Like It”, explore their sexual identity by assuming masculine characteristics. Both Beatrice and Rosalind find enjoyment, personal fulfillment, and confidence through allowing their assertive masculine aspects to come out.
    Women and men of their time were molded into traditional gender roles. Women were expected to be sugar and spice and all things nice. Men were expected not to cry and to be tough. Rosalind enjoyed a type of personal freedom few women or men of their time did.
    The character Rosalind shows that the idea that men are superior because they are tougher and more rigid is a fallacy. Both men and women in order to adapt and overcome must learn to be flexible.
    In Shakespeare’s play, “As You Like It”, through the character Rosalind we are shown that gender roles are learned behaviors. We are not born with them. In the court Rosalind is very feminine. She is charming and coquettish. When she leaves the court and goes into the forest, she goes through a transformation. She puts on men’s clothing and assumes the role of a man.
    She is so good at her masquerade that everyone is fooled. Through assuming the persona of a man, she explores an aspect of her sexual nature which she has not explored previously. As the Chinese say women and men both have a yin and yang nature.
    When a man suppresses his feminine aspect or a woman suppresses her masculine aspect, they do not reach their full potential as human beings. They are out of balance.
    While in the court Rosalind’s yang, masculine, nature is suppressed. She is expected to fulfill the role of a submissive and delicate woman. For her to display aggressive traits would result in her not fitting in. She is like a bird in a gilded cage. She is not allowed to reach her full potential as a woman.  
    When she goes out into the forest, she is not constrained by rules of feminine etiquette. She is in the wild and has freedom she never had before. She calls herself, “Ganymede”,  a character who is a boy but who looks feminine and is loved by Jove. Therefore she plays both the male and the female.
    While in the forest with Orlando, Rosalind takes a dominant role with him. She becomes the teacher and he the pupil. In their first encounter in the forest Ganymede-Rosalind offers to cure Orlando of his love for Rosalind. Ganymede-Rosalind offers to pretend to be Rosalind and to let Orlando woo her. She says she will be inconstant and moody. Thereby Orlando will lose his affection for Rosalind. Rosalind has Orlando eating out of her hand after this.
    Rosalind, however, still shows feminine traits in her male disguise. When Orlando brings out the bloody napkin, Rosalind swoons. Rosalind’s taking on a male role is a temporary thing. She is an adolescent exploring her sexual identity and trying to find herself. She explores her sexual identity as a kind of adventure. She is released from a cage and allowed to be who she wants to be. She is temporarily free of the constraints of social custom and traditional gender roles. However she is using
her male role to find out more about Orlando.
    She pretends to be a man and plays the game with Orlando to find out if he is really what she is looking for. Throughout the process of Orlando’s wooing of Rosalind, what started out as a potential for love or infatuation turns into love. Rosalind, in the end rather than curing Orlando of his love increases it.
    In the end, when Ganymede-Rosalind offers to bring Rosalind to Orlando, Orlando is excited and wants to marry Rosalind. Rosalind goes through a transformation in the end, by abandoning her male disguise and assuming her identity as Rosalind again. She says to Orlando and her father, Act V, iv, 3:
                    To you I give myself
                    For I am yours.
    As in, “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, the illusion is shattered in the end and things return to normal. In, “Midsummer Night’s Dream”, through the illusion we learn something about human nature and the unconscious. In, “As You Like It”, through being brought into the illusion of Rosalind as a man, we learn something about the reality of gender roles. We wake from the dream with a new insight into what it means to be a woman or man.
    Rosalind and Orlando are young lovers, unacquainted with the problems of love. They see love through rose-colored glasses. Beatrice and Benedick in, “Much Ado About Nothing”, are older and more experienced with love. Beatrice has apparently had a previous relationship with Benedick. This is seen when she says to Pedro, speaking about having lost the heart of Benedick, Act II, i, 249-252:

Indeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, awhile, and I gave him use for it- a double heart for his single one. Marry, once before he won it of me with false dice; Therefore your grace may well say I have lost it.
    Beatrice realizes that she must be tough and assume masculine traits in order to defend herself and survive. Therefore, she acts feisty and rebellious with Signior Benedick. Beatrice denies she loves Signior Benedick. She says she loathes him. Beatrice is afraid to be soft, feminine, and gentle with Benedick, because she has been hurt by him before. Rosalind started off as feminine and explored her masculine nature in the forest.  
    Beatrice starts off as being more yang and in the end discovers how to be vulnerable again and take chances when she marries Benedick. Even when Beatrice is making fun of Benedick and verbally jousting with him, she displays an interest in him. She enjoys these matches with Benedick. In Act I, i, 129-130, she says:

You always end with a jade’s trick.
I know you of old.

    She wants to continue to play with Benedick in the matches of wit because she still has affection for him. When she says she has lost Benedick’s heart, she expresses wistfulness and regret. Just as Rosalind had Orlando eating out of her hand and was dominant, Beatrice conquers Benedick.  At one point she asks Benedick to, “Kill Claudio.” Benedick replies, “Ha! Not for the wide world!” Yet in the end Benedick relents and offers to challenge Claudio.
    In the end of, “Much Ado About Nothing”, Beatrice learns to take chances again. She assumes the role of Benedick’s wife and thereby gives up some of her freedom and independence. She allows herself to express her yin nature once more and balance is restored in her life. However, she doesn’t give up her independence completely.
    When she offers to marry Benedick, she says, Act V, iv, 94-96:
I would not deny you; by this good day, I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.
    Shakespeare in these two plays, examines the eternal quest of men and women to find their identity and place in the world. He was an early pioneer in examining how gender roles are learned, not inherited. In these plays he shows that for men and women to be fulfilled, they must explore both their yin and yang aspects. This is crucial to the development and growth of each individual.
    Shakespeare showed in his plays how this process of self discovery makes women and men stronger and happier. He shows how this experimentation helps a person realize his or her creative and intellectual potential. Rosalind throughout this process of gender experimentation remains more polite and charming. Beatrice on the other hand is more blunt and rebellious.
    Anna Brownell Jameson in her essay written in 1833 said: “(I should rank Rosalind) before Beatrice in (Much Ado About Nothing), inasmuch as the greater degree of her sex’s softness and sensibility, united with equal wit and intellect, give her superiority as a woman; but that as a dramatic character she is inferior as force. The portrait is one of infinitely more delicacy and variety, but less strength and depth. It is easy to seize on the prominent features in the mind of Beatrice, but extremely difficult to catch and fix the more fanciful graces of Rosalind. She is like a compound of essences, so volatile in their nature, and so exquisitely blended, that on any attempt to analyze them they seem to escape us… (Her) genial spirit
touches into life and beauty whatever it shines on!”
    Therefore perhaps Rosalind is a more well-adjusted person than Beatrice. Rosalind is a more adaptable and happier person. Rosalind is wise beyond her years as she demonstrates as Orlando’s teacher. Rosalind, as a character embodies the spirit of Taoism through her supple grace in her quest for identity.