Key Quote
“"Give not this rotten orange to your friend"”
Claudio · Act 4, Scene 1
Focus: “rotten orange”
Claudio publicly compares Hero to damaged goods being returned to her father — reducing her from a person to a commodity, beautiful on the outside but corrupt within.
Technique 1 — EXTENDED METAPHOR / OBJECTIFICATION
Claudio objectifies (treats as an object) Hero through the extended metaphor of a 'rotten orange' — beautiful in colour on the outside but decayed within. This mercantile (commercial, trade-related) imagery reduces Hero to a piece of defective merchandise being returned to the seller (Leonato). The word 'friend' is bitterly ironic — Claudio frames this public humiliation as a favour.
The adjective 'rotten' carries connotations of moral decay, sexual corruption, and physical disgust. Shakespeare intensifies the cruelty by having Claudio use domestic, everyday imagery — an orange — to describe a human being, making the dehumanisation (stripping of human dignity) all the more shocking.
Key Words
RAD — REGRESS
Claudio's language reveals complete moral regression — the courteous young soldier has become a vindictive public accuser. His reduction of Hero to a commodity exposes the transactional basis of his love: when the 'product' appears damaged, the 'buyer' returns it with contempt. There is no compassion, no private inquiry, no benefit of the doubt.
Key Words
Technique 2 — PUBLIC PERFORMANCE / RITUAL HUMILIATION
Claudio deliberately stages this accusation as a public performance: he waits until the altar, before the entire community, to reject Hero. The choice of venue transforms personal grievance into communal spectacle. Like a Shakespearean trial scene, the wedding becomes a tribunal where Hero is simultaneously accused, tried, convicted, and sentenced without any opportunity for defence.
The imperative 'Give not' is addressed to Leonato, not to Hero — Claudio speaks over Hero to her father, treating the transaction as strictly between men. Hero is not even granted the status of a participant in her own fate. Shakespeare exposes how the honour system erases women from their own narratives.
Key Words
Context (AO3)
HONOUR & PROPERTY
Claudio's language reveals that Hero was never a partner but a possession being transferred from father to husband. When the 'goods' appear damaged, the exchange is voided. This reflects the legal reality of Elizabethan marriage, where women were literally chattels (movable property) transferred between men through marriage contracts.
MALE BONDS
Claudio addresses Leonato rather than Hero because the honour code operates between men. A woman's chastity belongs not to herself but to her male guardians — first her father, then her husband. The 'rotten orange' is being returned to the male custodian (guardian) who failed to protect the goods. Shakespeare critiques a system where women have no ownership of their own bodies or reputations.
Key Words
WOW — THE GIFT ECONOMY (Lévi-Strauss)
Claude Lévi-Strauss argued that in many societies, marriage functions as a gift exchange between male kinship groups, with women as the 'gifts' being exchanged. Claudio's orange metaphor perfectly illustrates this: Hero is a gift from Leonato to Claudio, and a 'rotten' gift insults the receiver. Lévi-Strauss's theory exposes marriage as a system of male bonding in which women are objects of exchange, not subjects with agency. Shakespeare dramatises this anthropological insight with devastating clarity — the tragedy is not just Claudio's cruelty but the entire structure of a society that enables and normalises the treatment of women as transferable commodities.
Key Words