Gender Roles Revealed In Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing

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William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing” is a play that’s plot revolves around heterosexual romantic relationships. Despite its status as a comedy, it contains some serious social commentary about these relationships. An example of this commentary is seen in act 2 scene 3, when Balthasar sings a song to Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio and Benedick. While the song is short, it is full of meaning as it both offers commentary on the gender roles within relationships and foreshadows much of the conflict that happens later in the play. Through this short song, Shakespeare is both acknowledging and critiquing both the treatment of women, and the values of men within romantic relationships. The subject matter of the song is parallel with many …show more content…

The fact that the song is not only performed by a man, but to a group of men calls into question the seriousness of the message, as if it truly was a message for women on how they should behave, it would have been much more effective if there were women on stage. Further, Benedick’s immediate reaction to the song is to say, “An he had been a dog that should have howled thus, they would have hanged him, and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief” (2.3,81-83), that he compares Balthasar’s voice to a howling dog, and that Balthasar also claims that he is “an ill singer” (2.3,78) undercuts the message of the song. While the other men quite like the song, Benedick’s unfavorable reaction is significant as Benedick is a character who is quite critical of love throughout the play and thus he acts as the mouthpiece for the criticism of this idea of how relationships should function. His hopes that Balthasar’s song doesn’t cause any mischief is interesting as well since aside from Benedick, the other men on stage who hear the song are the ones who quickly accuse Hero of infidelity later in the play. Benedick is the only male character who does not immediately believe that Hero is impure. By undermining the message of the song Shakespeare demonstrates that he does not approve of these attitudes toward

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