Four weddings and a funeral: narrative structure and character development

¶ … film Four Weddings and a Funeral starring Hugh Grant as Charles and Andie McDowell as Carrie. In the film, their characters pull of a passionate love affair which will be the focus of this paper. The courtship rituals between Charles and Carrie will be analyzed against Scheflen's Stages of Courtship. We will see that they the two definitely use the stages. Indeed, the interesting thing was that the two used the social events of weddings and the funeral to flirt in a socially acceptable way and to pick up an intimate partner, even if just for one night.

Analysis-Weddings as Flirtation and Pick-Up Opportunities

In the film, Charles and Carrie use the wedding and funeral social events for opportunities to flirt with each other in an acceptable fashion (most of the time anyway). For example, this is exactly what happened at the first wedding where they initially met. They spend the night with each other having sex. Obviously, at least at this social event, the wedding event itself is a place for these two singles to casually flirt and pick each other up when the courtship mood is at its height and the hormones are flying. Indeed, Carrie uses the opportunity she has when buying a dress for her own wedding to flirt with Charles where he helps her pick out a wedding dress and makes a half-hearted effort to express his fondness for her. She even expresses to him that he had been casual conquest number thirty two. This certainly did not seem to be the basis for a serious relationship on the surface.

Scheflen's Stages of Courtship and Charles and Carrie

Courtship readiness cues included preening behaviors that could be seen in the film like stroking hair, fixing makeup, or the adjustment of clothing. Other behaviors Schelfen described as invitational that Carrie and Charles used were flirtatious glances and holding another's gaze. When Carrie expressed to Charles that he was conquest number thirty two, it was one of Scheflen's indicators of sexual intent were of a qualified nature or negated by opposing behaviors. This type of courtship behaviors that she exhibited was in an inappropriate context, however, it showed a teasing interest.

In the opinion of this author, the level of Scheflen's stages that Carrie and Charles reached was obviously invitation, particularly when Carrie shows up at Charles' wedding and this causes him to blow the wedding ceremony by admitting his infatuation with her ("Human nonverbal courtship," 2011).

The gender differences were those normally noted by psychologists such as Scheflen noted are displayed. In such instances, women usually use behaviors such as intimate gazing, touching, smiling, and self-grooming while men used intimate touching. Carrie was atypical in that many women initiate intimate touching only after marriage while men usually do it before the marriage takes place during the act of courtship (ibid.).