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Aspects of love in shakespeare
Attitudes to love and marriage in shakespeare times
Aspects of love in shakespeare
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Marriage and love are two important components that contribute to the plot of William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”. In Scene 1 Act 1, Claudio happily intends on proposing to Hero who later accepts in return. As the story progresses, scheming is involved to marry Beatrice and Benedick and to end the flourishing relationship of Claudio and Hero. Shakespeare portrays young love and old love through the relationships of Claudio and Benedick. Beatrice, niece of Leonato and cousin of Hero, is one of the most sarcastic and bitter characters in all of “Much Ado About Nothing”. She is a confident woman who always speaks her mind. Beatrice does not fit the role of a traditional woman of that period in time. Her bitterness is displayed by her interactions with Benedick and as the play goes on it is learned that he has hurt her. Every encounter with him is now met with anger and disdain to hide her true feelings for him. Yet, when she over hears Hero and Ursula talking about how distressed Benedick is over her hatred for him, she is willing to love him openly: “And Benedick, l...
Beatrice is an extremely crucial character in ‘Much Ado About Nothing’. She is one of the reasons that many plans and schemes fall into place to provide us with the outcome that the play finally reaches. Shakespeare depicts Beatrice as a very strong character who knows what she wants and how she wants to achieve it. Her characteristics of sharp wit and her ability to be acutely opinionated allow her to be a notable contrast from the other women in the play, whether this be in a positive or a negative way.
In Shakespeare’s Much Ado about Nothing, there are the usual characters that show up in most of Shakespeare’s pieces. For instance the characters Hero and Claudio could easily be compared to Romeo and Juliet. Both Hero and Juliet are innocent, quite, and beautiful young women who fall in love instantly without conversing with the other person. Likewise, Claudio and Romeo decide to marry these women within twenty-four hours. Because of these characters’ lack of unique and interesting qualities, I am intrigued by Beatrice.
At the beginning, Benedick’s attitude is negative towards women in general. He swears he will never marry, as he is very critical of women and does not trust any of them not to cheat on him. He seems to oppose with Beatrice in a competition to outwit, outsmart, and out-insult each other. Obviously he has been in some sort of past relationship with Beatrice because when he meets her at the masked ball, she describes him as a selfish pig. We can infer that Benedick has some kind of deep feelings for her because after she insults him he is hurt and says, “Will your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes that you can devise to send me on. I will fetch you a toothpick from the furthest inch of Asia . . . do you any embassage to the pigmies, rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy” (II.i.229–235). This blatantly means that he does not wish to talk to her.
...ut Nothing is an extremely fast paced and witty play, Shakespeare very much has love as his central theme. There are two very different, yet equally compelling relationships that are explored in depth. They run through the play concurrently, allowing the reader to compare and contrast the different facets and complexities between the two. The playwright’s rich understanding of relationships, and particularly his understanding of the fact that love is not always as formulaic as many a writer would have us believe, makes for a fascinating read. In fact, by directly comparing a realistic couple, full of real world self doubt and a fear of rejection with a very stereotypical love-at-first-sight type of relationship, Shakespeare is possibly making the point that love and relationships have more depth than is often given credit.
Much Ado About Nothing is a William Shakespeare play that was performed in 1612. It is a play about love and complications. The important love in this play includes Beatrice and Benedick, and Hero and Claudio. Hero and Claudio played the part of new puppy love and Beatrice and Benedick being the old dog love. This is about the two women of the love’s, Beatrice and Hero. Their acceptance of marriage. What made them so different and how would a modern feminist view their acceptances; which would be that a modern feminist would disagree with their ways of life interpreting love.
Set in the sixteenth century, Much Ado About Nothing is revolved around the thought of love and marriage. Primarily, this is prevalent in the two main characters, Beatrice and Benedick. They have once been courted which suggests more maturity than the majority of couples in Shakespeare’s various plays. In the duration of the play, the violent language between Benedick and Beatrice is most evident through their ridicule. Both characters always speak critically regardless of whether they are talking to each other or out loud about one another. This is highlighted when Beatrice exclaims, “What should I do with him—dress him in my apparel / and make him my waiting gentlewoman? He that hath a / beard is more than / a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a/ man; and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a/ man, I am not for him...
True love is a bond shared by few and dreamed of by everyone. The appearance of a relationship may not accurately depict the true reality of the situation. The bond between Claudio and Hero appears far stronger than that of Beatrice and Benedict, yet events of the play provide evidence for the converse. In Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing, the masked emotions of two couples are evoked through subterfuge.
Beatrice is the ever-witty Lady Disdain, outspoken and opinionated niece of Leonato. She and Benedick are involved in a "merry sort of war". Always ragging on each other in a sort of easy going way, but never the less hurting each other's feelings. Both are cynical about Love. Beatrice is described by her uncle to mock all of her wooers out of suite.
Feminist critics of Much Ado About Nothing, like Sylvia Townsend Warner, praise Beatrice for being "free and uninhibited" ("Women as Writers," Warner, 272). Beatrice is a strong female character who marries only after asserting her disapproval for the traditionally voiceless role of women in marriage and courtship relationships of the 16th and 17th c. Beatrice is a fearless verbal warrior, and Benedick is her greatest challenger. Their verbal bantering allow for each of their strengths and opinions to show, and together they glory in the challenge of their next duel.
Shakespeare’s play ‘Much Ado about Nothing’ has two main female characters, Beatrice and Hero, who are cousins. Both appear to be completely different in the beginning of the play but, as things progress and their characters develop, there are also some very obvious similarities between them. Hero and Beatrice have a very close relationship; they are best friends. Leonato is Hero’s father but Beatrice has no parents, which gives her greater freedom. Where Hero is polite, quiet, respectful and gentle, Beatrice is feisty, cynical, witty, and sharp.
Beatrice is, without a doubt, one of the strongest female characters that Shakespeare ever came up with in his time of writing. Shakespeare shows, through Beatrice, how every woman should act in an era where only the men were even able to have control. In this era, or the renaissance time, no woman had free will; they were always told what they could and could not do, as well as, who they were to marry. In the play “Much Ado About Nothing” Beatrice has many qualities but the ones that stand out the most in the play are: her independence, her feistiness, and of course her openness to defy male subjection.
The attraction of a man to a woman, albeit mainly off of looks, is a common occurrence, and is most often recently labeled “a crush”. A portrayal of this has been revealed in the character Claudio’s love for Hero in “Much Ado about Nothing”. Several proofs which support for this theory are the manner in which Claudio talks about her, the style he treats her in, and the viewpoints of others in regard to his feelings. In conclusion, Claudio had the equivalent of a modern day “crush”. But in the end, it seems as if one of his main problems could be described with another modern term; “late
themes is Love. There can be many facets of love found in the play. It
...o asks Hero about Claudio she responds with: "So you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away." (2.1.81-83). Beatrice is what a woman should be. A more modern view of feminism would have had Beatrice not only make her own decisions but follow through with them on her own. While Much Ado About Nothing seemingly questions the traditional gender roles of men and women in Messina through Beatrice's resistance to them, at the same time, the play decidedly ends Benedick saying, "Peace! I will stop your mouth" (5.4.96), silencing Beatrice with a kiss. Still, it cannot be denied that Beatrice, for a time, equates herself with men and the power they hold. Unfortunately, she gives in to love and in so doing, she relinquishes her independence and self-control in the male-dominated world of Much Ado About Nothing.
In the play Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare, love is a very important and a consistent theme; which the play is based on. The theme if love is important because, from a very young age people feel love. We want to know what love is. Where does it come from? How do I get it? What does it feel like? When will I have it? What do I need to have love? Love is something we wait for. We imagine our first kiss. Our first “I love you.” Our first heartbreak. The truth is love is made up of many things: Pain, Joy, Compassion, understanding, longing, and tears. Shakespeare uses the notion of love to show how important trust and loyalty are in any relationship.