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Women And Women In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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In the play, Much Ado About Nothing, I believe that Shakespeare was mostly conservative. A lot of the characters in the play had limitations and expectations because of their gender. Men were expected to be brave and honourable while women were largely valued for their beauty. Men hardly faced the same level of consequences as women, and women had little to no authority thus were rarely seen/heard in the public. Forms of entertainment in the Elizabethan times included cock fighting, bear baiting, beheadings and more. These events can get repetitive/boring over time. However Shakespeare’s plays are all unique and different, making them entertaining for everyone. Today I’ll be talking about these 3 following characters; Hero, Beatrice and Benedick. Hero is the daughter of Leonato. She is depicted as the ideal woman. She’s ‘fair’, loyal, …show more content…

He also shows the importance of virginity through how her father ‘disowns’ her when she is accused of being unfaithful to Claudio. Now moving onto Beatrice, the cousin of Hero. She is a sharp, witty and feisty woman and unlike Hero, does not conform to the expectations placed on women at that time. Throughout the play, she swears that she will never get married to any man, and that no man will ever be good enough for her. However as the play goes on, we realize that she is very much afraid of being vulnerable to love, and uses her wit as a cover for it. Even though Beatrice is a strong-willed and independent woman, she does admit she has limitations. After the wedding, when Claudio wrongly accused Hero, she told Benedick how she had a plan (to kill Claudio). Benedick questioned her if any person could do it, and she responds

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While they are conversing, Beatrice plainly states that she wants Benedick to “kill Claudio...a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured [her] kinswoman (Shakespeare 74-75).” Beatrice makes very bold actions, and she is not afraid of doing so. This shows how Beatrice and Hero are foils of each other because Hero takes actions that are safe and pleasing to others, while Beatrice does what she wants and doesn’t care about what others think of her actions. Another example of this occurs during the Masquerade Ball. Beatrice talks with Don Pedro and is quoted to have said, “My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart (Shakespeare 27).”

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Meaning she directly tells Benedick to physically prove his love for her. Hero on the other hand, settles for Claudio without as much as a proper conversation. Even after Claudio publically shames her and calls her “... an approved wanton”(Shakespeare 154). Claudio calls her a glorified slut. Even after Claudio ruins her life, and forces her to go into hiding,

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However, due to their lack of trust, suspense is built to sustain a plot. Just as the problem arises quickly, the complication is resolved just as simply with the marriage of the young lovers. Throughout the play, the relationship between Beatrice and Benedict serve as a comedic relief. There snarky replies are well crafted such as Benedict’s view on Beatrice’s replies: “she speaks poniards, and every word stabs: if her breath were as terrible as her terminations, there were no living near her; she would infect to the north star.” In the final act, audience find compassion that Benedict and Beatrice hate relationship settles to a love relationship.

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Claudio, Hero and Don Pedro all realize how perfect Beatrice and Benedick are together and so they set up a plan to deceive the two of them into falling in love. Don Pedro comes up with the plan to be having Benedick eavesdropping on Don Pedro, Leonato and Claudio chatting about how much Beatrice is secretly in love with Benedick. Just as they expected , their plan goes off without a hitch. After the group is done talking and they all leave, Benedick comes out of hiding and start talking about what he just heard and realizes that he is in love with Beatrice. “I will be horribly in love wit her.”

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He is foolish for putting up a town notice to challenge a love god, and he is selfish for taking advantage of a jester. Through lines like these, Beatrice is quickly revealing her hate for Benedick, but staying true to her character, she only does so whilst speaking in a tongue of

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Hero sent a friend to go and tell Beatrice that herself and Ursula were talking about her. When they knew Beatrice was ease dropping, they began to talk about how Benedick was in love with her. Hero was also saying, however, that Beatrice was too proud to ever love anyone. She did this on purpose. This impacted the audience because while Beatrice thought she just overheard that Benedick loves her, she really just got set up.

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When Beatrice asks Benedick to duel Claudio for her, he agrees and plans to duel him. Benedick and Claudio are best friends who had fought in battle together, but the love of a woman completely changes Benedick’s allegiance from his fellow soldiers to his new love. Before falling in love with Beatrice, Benedick would have done everything possible to protect his brothers in battle. Now, love has emboldened him to make a choice that he would not have previously made. Benedick’s sacrifice of a meaningful friendship proves that he is now completely devoted to his relationship with Beatrice and is willing to do whatever necessary to preserve that relationship.

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Benedick goes from describing the perfection he desires in a woman to automatically fall in love with Beatrice He acknowledges that he is going against his reputation and that others may mock him if they find out, but he understands that he has the right to change his opinion. After Don Pedro, Claudio, and Leonato trick Benedick into thinking that Beatrice is in love with him, Hero and Ursula managed to mislead Beatrice into realizing her feelings for Benedick. Claudio, Don Pedro, and Leonato were working with Hero and Ursula to deceive them to fulfill their goal, which was to see those two marry. Like Benedick, falls for the trap and engages in eavesdropping. In Beatrice's soliloquy, she says, “What fire is in mine ears?

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Before Benedick and Beatrice decided to marry each other or start a relationship at all, they took a period of time to ponder their feelings and realize the best solution, something Claudio and Hero completely ignored. Once they decided to finally start a relationship, their joking nature didn 't change, displaying their friendship and love for each other as a main component that has not wavered. Even when announcing their relationship, a serious matter, Benedick joked, “But by this light, I take thee/ for pity”(5.4.92-93). It is obvious that Benedick does not actually think Beatrice is ugly, but their relationship is so strong that he can jokingly insult her. In contrast, Hero and Claudio had to remain respectful towards each other in order to not risk the marriage.

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The audience may understand the concept of love and romance flowing within the characters because it was to portrayed that way but the critics would argue the fact that some of the characters like Beatrice and Benedick were made to fall in love with each other through deception. As simple as the characters were, the situations arousing in the play became more complexed as scenes passed by. What led to the trouble and chaos in the play also led to the solution in the end, when Claudio and Don Pedro were deceived into thinking by Don John that Hero was unfaithful. That very same idea also solved the problem in the end when Leonato, Hero’s father, deceived Claudio by making him believe that she is dead and that it is his duty to clear Hero’s name by reading out on her tomb and marrying the said niece who looks just like Hero. Again the plotting against own is present where the said niece turns out to be Hero and she comes back to life again.

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Each female character is treated by men as a possession. However, there are also moments when they are presented as confident and challenge a male authority. This would have been exiting for Shakespeare’s female Elizabethan audience as women

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It was a set up marriage and she would just try to make the male proud. Relationships, in the modern day, are more egalitarian than they use to be. This allows Benedick and Beatrice to represent more of a modern time ideal couple, than Claudio and Hero. A great quote about relationships is “ Respect is as important as love in a relationships”

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This is shown with their views on marriage. Hero is willing to marry whoever her father asks her too and when Leonato finds out that Don Pedro seeks marriage with Hero, he encourages Hero to marry and says to Hero, “Daughter, remember what I told you. If the prince does solicit you in the kind, you know your answer” (II.i.57-58). Beatrice, however rebels completely against marriage and says “If he send me no husband; for the which blessing / I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening” (23-25).

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While Desdemona is a remarkably strong character, Emilia also displays independence unmatched by any other female in Othello, and there are multiple details of Shakespeare and his time that may have prompted such a portrayal. In Elizabethan England, many women worked behind the scenes of productions, like Shakespeare’s, as uncredited authors and editors (Crowley). Due to their anonymity, nobody can be sure that women were involved in Shakespeare’s plays nor Othello in particular, but there is a genuine possibility that female writers did have leverage. This may have had to do with how Emilia was portrayed as resilient from the time of Desdemona’s death all the way until her own, standing up for herself regardless of the ridicule it caused her (Iyasere). In fact, it even killed her in the end.

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